


scar like you

by theredhoodie



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Angst, F/M, Headcanon, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been six months since the deaths of Santanico Pandemonium and Richard Gecko, and Kate Fuller is having a hard time assimilating into the real world in San Diego. When Seth arrives on her doorstep with news of her brother, Kate jumps on the chance to shake off the chains of normalcy and to take another journey south of the border.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scar like you

**Author's Note:**

> This is the LONG ANTICIPATED (by me) sequel to [my soul finds a home with you](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2356436) that rounds out my headcanon of how the series /could/ end if it were driven by fandom and ships. I wrote about 20k of this back in October, and finally finished off the last this week, but hey, it's finally here and I'm pretty proud of the EPIC scale I made this! So tell me what you think!
> 
> PS: Edited by myself, any mistakes are my own.

"These feelings...the ugly feelings in my heart...should have been blown away...and buried deep in the sands..." 

— Rei Tōma, Dawn of the Arcana, Vol. 9

8

Kate still has nightmares. They vary now, more than before. Sometimes they're about her father, sometimes they're about Richie, sometimes they're faceless and villainless, and sometimes they're about her brother.

Her great-aunt Hannah makes her go to therapy. She arrived on Hannah's doorstep in San Diego with nothing but the words "Daddy and Scott are dead". Because of that, she had to be psychoanalyzed and sent to a shrink. She doesn't like it. She knows what happened, she's dealing with it and she doesn't need anyone's help. Especially not from people who can't know the truth. She can't even mention Seth and Richie, even though the news put them together: the Fuller family held hostage by the notorious Gecko brothers. And sure, it had started that way, but look how it ended?

But she has to go to therapy. She has to make the appointments, even if she never talks. This has been going on for six months. She comes into the office, sits down on the couch and bites the inside of her cheek as she presses her hands together between her knees and waits for the fifty minutes to be up.

"Kate." The therapist, a woman named Geraldine, speaks, each time trying to get Kate to say anything. "I think it would really help you to talk to me. We don't have to talk about anything that happened to you back in Texas and Mexico. Why don't you just have a conversation with me?"

Kate sighs and drags her eyes from the framed diplomas on the wall to the woman's face. She's in her fifties by the looks of the dates on the degrees, but her black hair and smooth face make her look much younger. "About what?" she asks, her voice still the same soft southern tone she's always had.

"How are you settling into school? I know you missed the first few weeks and this is an entirely new school system for you."

Kate blinks. Her father had taken her and her brother out of the state two weeks before her senior year was supposed to start. She had traveled around with Seth for a little over a month. Once she started school here, a month had already gone by for the natives. "It's okay. It's school," she says. What she doesn't say is that she needs to care about school, and she does, but the people, the other students? She can't seem to swim across the ocean between her and them. They have drama and gossip about sex and cheating and celebrities and all Kate can think of is how taunt and tense her muscles are all day because she can't bring a weapon to school, and even though culebra can't walk under the sun, she's always on edge. "Everyone seems…petty."

She frowns. She doesn't hate them. She envies them, the naivety that they have, the childhoods that they still have to finish. "Which I don't like to think about, I guess. I just can't connect to them anymore," she finishes. And it's true. She can't connect with people her age, because who has any similar experiences? No one. At least, no one in this state. Only the Ranger and Seth are left to back up her story and share those terrors.

Geraldine nods. "I can tell that it bothers you. Everyone desires human connection, it's a natural response."

Kate swallows and tenses. Isn't that what Richie always had trouble with?  _Simple, human connection_. She shakes her head and focuses on the wedding band on Geraldine's hand.

"I don't know what you went through during your ordeal, Kate, but I expect it has a lot to do with how you're feeling now. It's influencing your ability to connect."

Kate finds herself sitting back against the couch and crossing her arms. After having someone in your mind, having someone so connected that you could literally feel each other's emotions over miles and miles and miles, then yeah, it was hard to connect. When you had to let your little brother go, when you had to kill your father because otherwise he would have turned into a monster, yeah, it was hard to connect. But she couldn't say anything here.

"Maybe," she shrugs.

8

She doesn't have the cross that her mother gave her anymore. A culebra had ripped it off her throat when she and Seth were ambushed down in Mexico tracking Richie. So great-aunt Hannah gets her a new one. It feels strange hanging off of her neck, but she wears it in hopes that the strangeness will wear off. It's not like she doesn't have her faith anymore. She feels it more than ever, she needs it to keep going onward, but she doesn't like going to church anymore.

Her own words to her father, that God doesn't exist in some book or building but within a person, become her new philosophy.

There are always whispers about her around the school. News travels far and fast, or maybe it's just because of the internet. Her second day of school, Kate was sitting in the courtyard eating lunch when a girl with frosted hair and French tips walked up to her with a few of her friends hanging back.

"Hey," she said, voice kind and friendly.

"Hi," Kate said, looking up from her sandwich.

"You're Kate, right? I just have to ask you something," she said words gushing with enthusiasm. Kate already doesn't want to know what she's about to be asked. "Is it true that you had to move here because you got kidnapped and your family got killed? I just have to ask, it sounds crazy. I mean, how could  _you_  get away?"

Kate blinked up at the girl. The girl who had nothing better to do with her lunch hour than to try to strike up a rumor and to cause a scene with Kate. "I killed some people," Kate said coolly, voice never wavering, eyes steady.

The girl stammered at the response. Then reported Kate to the principal. That's when Kate was forced into therapy.

8

"Can't you try to be a little more…accepting, Kate?" Great-Aunt Hannah says one night over dinner. She's the same rich great-aunt that Kate took money from to help her and Seth travel to Mexico City. She's seventy and white haired, she does Pilates and goes to church.

"Accepting of what?" Kate asks over her soup. It's January, but it's southern California so the winters are mild, just like in Texas, only drier. But soup is still a staple in winter cuisine.

"Accepting of your life here, sweetheart," Hannah says, leaning forward in her seat across from Kate.

Kate licks her lips and puts her spoon down. "I know. I'm sorry. It's just so…different. It's different from Texas."

"And from Mexico," Hannah pushes. Kate knows she means well. Kate doesn't reply. She doesn't know when or if she'll ever be able to talk to anyone about anything that happened. The more people push her, the more she digs her feet down and doesn't move or give anyone the answers that they want.

"I don't want to talk about Mexico, Aunt Hannah," Kate says as gently as she can.

Hannah leans forward and puts her hand over Kate's against the table. "I know. I know you keep saying that. And you know that I can't be told about how your therapy…I just really hope that you're talking to Geraldine about what happened to you."

Kate swallows.

"I only met you as a baby, and when you and the family came to visit when you were eleven, but even I know that this isn't who you are. Something is holding you back, dearie."

Both of them know that she's right.

"I'm trying," Kate says finally. "I'm sorry I'm bein' so difficult, I really don't wanna be. It's just…no one will understand."

Hannah nods softly and sadly. "One day you'll find someone who will."

8

Kate's nightmares leave her gasping and crying. Her aunt is on the other side of the house, down on the first floor, and Kate has no one to wake her up or rub her back to calm her down.

She dreams of her and Seth burning Richie's body in Boca Del Rio. Only, it's not really him. She sees him again and he's something else, something not culebra, not human, something…truly horrifying. She can never put her finger on it, but it causes her to freeze in fear.

It gets worse when she starts seeing not only Richie as such a terrible creature, but also Scott and her dad. She wakes up coughing and crying and sits in the bathtub in cold water because her skin is on fire.

She doesn't tell anyone. Until she does.

8

It's her first session back after winter break and Kate talks to Geraldine in session about her school, about the things that happen there, about the people she watches and the feelings of isolation. It's the stuff they've been talking about for the past few months. Kate is comfortable with it. And then she starts to tell her about the nightmares.

Nothing specific, she could never do that, but she talks about them.

"I've kinda been havin' nightmares," Kate says one day. It's the first thing she says, since Geraldine waits for her to start their conversations now.

"What kind of nightmares?" Geraldine asks, always with the typical questions.

Kate sucks in a breath. "Things that've happened. Things that happened, but they're twisted. I've had 'em ever since Mexico." That was over five months ago.

Geraldine seems to know this, because her eyebrows raise a fraction. "That's a very long time. Have you told anyone else about these nightmares?"

Seth flashes to mind, the way she would wake him up without meaning to when her dreams were about blood and death and dying. Not so much when she had dreams about Richie, except that one that had her waking up choking and sobbing.

"Not anyone lately," she settles on. She tries to be as truthful as possible. It's difficult when she has to censor everything she says for fear of being tossed into a mental hospital because of the very  _real_  things she had gone through.

Kate rubs her palms together and her eyes start darting around the room. She doesn't know what she's expecting. It's daylight, and culebra would never attack in the middle of day. And why would anyone bother with her anyway? She walked away from that life. Even if she does have a small locked case with weapons under her shoeboxes in the closet.

"Kate?" Geraldine gets her attention. "If it's impairing your ability to get a full night's rest, I can prescribe you something that may help you sleep."

Kate doesn't like taking meds. It reminds her of her mother overdosing.

"No thanks."

8

Kate buys some snacks and is shoving them into her backpack when the wind decides to pick up. It pushes her back against an outside stand of oranges and she watches helplessly as they topple to the ground, hitting the sidewalk with thuds, some of them rolling out into the street. Her mouth hangs open in the split seconds following. She doesn't know what makes her run, but she zips her bag, slings it over her shoulder and then she's gone. Her sneakers slap against the concrete as she rounds a corner and jogs uphill until she can't catch her breath and she stops.

The adrenaline pumping through her veins gives her a rush that she hasn't felt since the last time she and Seth killed a duo of culebra. She can't help but smile and shake her head at the memory, the blood rushing to the ends of her fingers and toes as she stands there, taking in steady breaths. Finally, she straightens her back and pushes her hair out of her eyes.

She blinks and looks across the street. She blinks again, sure that her mind is just playing tricks on her. But, no matter how many times she blinks, she still sees him across the road, leaning against a baby blue Camaro, a car looks more like it's for Kate than for him. Her bag is crumpled on the ground next to her, filled with school books and fruit and a box of honey crackers.

He has that knowing, cocky smirk on his face, dressed in a suit, which she hasn't seen him in in a long time. "Running from the cops?" he calls, his voice raising a little to reach her across the road.

She can't help the smile that breaks across her face. Nor can she stop herself from bolting off the sidewalk and across the street. She can't help any of it. She hugs him—because what else was she going to do?—throwing her arms around his neck and dragging him down a little as her body collides with his. His arms wrap around her, too, and she closes her eyes.

"Way to keep it low key, princess," he says, but there is warmth in his voice that tells her he's not angry.

"It's so good to see you," she says against his collar. She keeps her hold on him for a little longer before she decides enough is enough and she falls back on her heels, her palms pressing against his shoulders. He's shorter than Richie by a lot at this close proximity. He hands are around her waist. Everything about him is warm and familiar. "Wait…what are you doin' here?"

She thinks of the cops, the Rangers, the FBI that are after the Gecko brothers—now singular, she thinks, which leaves her with a jab in the stomach—and how she expected Seth to have disappeared into Mexico again, where he could hide away and live on a beach or something. But here he is, in the middle of San Diego.

"Have you been followin' me?" she adds, tilting her head to the side and furrowing her eyebrows.

"No," Seth replies too quickly. Kate raises her eyebrows up at him, not buying his lie. "Right, so I may have followed you from school."

Kate forces herself not to grin at the absurdity of that and shakes her head. "That's not typically somethin' a grown man should be sayin'. You could go to jail for that," she points out.

"I think I'd be going to jail for a lot more than that," he says, finally taking his hands away only after he moved her closer to the car. "Besides, I wanted to see how  _normal_ was panning out for you."

Kate's face falls a little. She doesn't like that word; she doesn't like to think that this isn't supposed to be normal. It really  _is_  supposed to be normal, the word isn't supposed to be layered with sarcasm and disbelief.

"School, livin' with my aunt, dealin' with teenage gossip, it ain't extremely excitin'," Kate says, waving a hand. She crosses her arms in the extra large jacket that she still wears even though Hannah tells her it makes her look homeless. It's big and green with pockets for weapons and it had history and bloodstains on it that reminded Kate that Mexico really happened.

"Sounds fascinating," Seth says with a roll of his eyes. "C'mon."

"What?"

"Come on. Are you hungry?"

Kate looks at him and thinks of how she promised great-aunt Hannah to always come right home from school, at least until her academic probation is over—not for another two weeks. She shrugs. "Yeah. Let me get my stuff."

8

Seth drives through the city and toward the beach. The windows are down, the car smells like sea and the air whips around the cab like ice crystals. Kate leans her head back against the headrest and smiles softly for no reason except that she no longer feels like she's bobbing in the middle of an ocean alone. Seth is there, too.

She doesn't know how long they drive, but she knows that they don't talk. She enjoys his presence and opens her eyes from time to time to see where they are and to glance over at Seth's profile.

He eventually pulls the car off to the side of the road in a dusty parking lot. There's a tiny little diner claiming to sell the best seafood on the West Coast. Kate gets out of the car and leaves her backpack in the back seat. Seth slings an arm across her shoulders and she rolls her eyes.

"What're you doin'?"

"Nothing."

Kate looks down at the dirt and rocks under their feet and proceeds to poke him in the side with her fingertips. "You missed me," she says, looking up and over at him.

They stop walking, but they're at the door already. Seth drops his arm and pulls open the door for her. "So what if I did?"

Kate pauses for a moment, eyes searching his face, and then she walks by him. "It's okay," she says, looking over her shoulder as he follows her in. "I missed you, too."

8

They order food. Neither of them order Mexican. Neither of them order the seafood that the place is known for either. Kate gets a stack of pancakes and Seth gets a burger and fries.

"What've you been doin'?" Kate asks once the waitress walks away. She pulls off her jacket. It's the same one that Seth bought her when they got out of the Titty Twister and drove down the road a few dozen miles. She shoves it down behind her and sits back against the cushion. "I thought you'd be hidin' out somewhere."

Seth shrugs, also leaning back, his arms laid out over the back of the bench seat. "I did. Got lost in Vegas for a while but the heat was still looking for me. So I crashed Mexico's great vacation spots. And now I'm here."

Kate tilts her head, knowing that's all she's getting out of him at this very moment in time. She rests her hands on the table, picking at her nails without looking at her fingers. "Yeah? Because you missed me," she says, a small smile tugging on her lips.

The waitress comes over to fill up their coffees. She doesn't say anything about the very apparently age gap between the two of them. Seth was the older brother; he was older than Richie, Kate knew that, she just didn't know by just how much. But, Kate obviously didn't look like she's been kidnapped—ironically—so there was no need for anyone around them to panic.

"Sure, there's that," Seth says, dipping his head and waving a hand.

Kate's smile faded a little. "There's somethin' else?"

Seth clenches his jaw and Kate sees the muscles in his face tense. "Yeah. That uh…the temple?" Kate nods, letting him knows that she knew which of them he was talking about. It is the only one they call  _the temple_. "Your brother's spent time in there." Kate feels like she's been tossed into a tub of ice water, but she doesn't say anything. "And, with what Richie and I did…something's messed up in the culebra world."

Kate's teeth sink into her bottom lip and she grips her coffee cup in her hands tightly. "You never told me what you did," she says, once she finally has her voice under control. "Richie gave me the single sentence version, but there's gotta be a lot more than what he said."

Seth raises his eyebrows and leans forward, over the table. "What'd he tell you?"

"That…he didn't give Santantico all of the blood from the Sasak Ukib, so that it was still…I don't know,  _inside_  him? And that he cut it out of him and sacrificed it to the gods. They were appeased or somethin' by the offerin' and then he killed Santanico." She keeps her voice low and she also leans forward so their foreheads have just an inch of space between them. She scrapes together as much information as she could remember from her short conversation with Richie, before and after they had sex. Actual sex. Not just sex in a shared dream. But that was a whole other thing that just gave Kate a headache to think about.

Seth makes a face and sits back, kind of stunned. "That's  _all_  he told you?"

Kate doesn't sit back as much, but she gives her elbows a break from digging into the hard tabletop. "Well, we were kind of busy…and on a time crunch." She doesn't say that the time crunch was because they didn't know just how long he would actually live before his fatal wounds returned to being fatal.

"Uh huh," Seth says, but doesn't offer anything else. The waitress brings their food and Kate unabashedly digs in, slathering on butter between the flapjacks and smothering the tower of them in syrup.

"You're not gonna emphasize that?" Kate asks after she's taken her first bite.

Seth has his burger in his hands. He glances over the table at Kate. "Not right now. In public. Have a little discretion, princess." He doesn't say it harshly, which is nice. He could have. But the last thing Kate wants right now is a fight. She wants to sit there with Seth, a kindred soul, and eat her delicious pancakes with the view of the ocean.

8

She doesn't like to go to the ocean usually. Mostly because she has no friends to go with, and going alone isn't something she can handle. If she does, she fears that she will break down and never be able to pick herself up again. She can't just  _accept_  everything without breaking. She's only human.

The last time she stood at the edge of land she looked out over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the island that could bring about the end of the world out in the distance. She hugged her arms around herself and leaned up against the latest car that Seth had hijacked. Richie was close, she could feel it like a pull in her soul.

She'll never feel that again.

8

"You can really pack it away, can't you?" Seth raises his eyebrows at her and her completely crumb free plate.

Kate scoffs and laughs lightly. "C'mon, Seth. You should know that I can eat a lot," she says, a slight blush creeping onto her face.

"Mexican food, yeah," he says, nodding. "Pancakes are filling."

She sighs and crosses her arms. "I skipped lunch," she says. She doesn't emphasize, doesn't tell him that the kids at school shift from day to day. Sometimes she is ignored all day, sometimes they do nothing but torment her, taunting her about all sorts of things. From her freaking out and killing her family. Or jabbing her faith and asking how many people she slept with to get to back the United States. Teenagers are mean, plain and simple. They lose their sympathy and empathy after about age seven. Even before then these days. Today was one of those days she got tormented, and so she sat in the bathroom until the bell, and hid in the back of class like always.

"Why?" he asks. "Do I need to beat someone up?"

Kate barks out a laugh. "Do you really think  _I_  need help beatin' someone up?"

"Oh!" Seth raises his eyebrows and fishes out his wallet. "Do you have a chainsaw or some scythes in your closet behind your flower dresses and rosary beads?"

The amusement on her face turns to annoyance and she clenches her jaw for a moment. "Are you really makin' fun of me right now?"

Seth raised his hands, palm out in surrender. "No. No, I'm sorry. You can definitely kick some ass. I know."

She nods in approval. "Okay. Good."

Seth slaps some bills onto the table, wrinkled and stained ones. "Let's go."

Kate sucks in a breath and pushes herself out of the booth, grabbing her jacket and folding it over her arms. "Where are we goin'?"

Seth looks down at her. "Your aunt home all the time?"

Kate blinks and tightens her arms around her middle. "She has late nights out on Wednesdays," she says softly.

"Cool," Seth says, taking a step around her. "Your place it is."

8

Just three or four hours, at most, after she met Seth, Kate confessed her greatest sin. At the time, it had been French kissing Kyle in the back of the church. She was seventeen and a preacher's daughter, she had no skeletons in her closet. Not like the Gecko brothers did.

But now? She has many sins under her belt. She's killed people. She's killed monsters, she killed her father. She had sex before marriage. What more could she do? The sex was at the top of the list, but murder took the cake, even if she had mostly killed things that weren't human. Killing, in the eyes of God…well, Kate has no one now to tell her what's what. She knows inside that she's done what had to be done. It was kill or be killed, and she needed to live. She's young, she has time to make up for her sins.

And she isn't entirely sure she even wants to. To go back in time…maybe she would want that. Her father would be alive, Scott wouldn't be a culebra, and her family wouldn't be broken into pieces.

But that's not the only thing that would change. Who knows where her family would be if they hadn't gone to the Dew Drop Inn. Just thinking of impossible pasts and futures was enough to give her a headache. She can't focus on the past, on the what ifs of life. She has to focus on what's been given to her. It is the only way she'll survive.

8

Seth parks the car outside the townhouse and Kate's heart speeds up as she opens the front door and lets him in. "Just um….take off your shoes," she says over her shoulder, toeing off her own shoes and walking farther into the living room. She tosses her backpack on the floor next to the couch and lays her jacket over the back of one of the armchairs.

"How long until your aunt gets back?" Seth asks, walking into the house in black socks. He glances around, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"What? You don't want to have to lie to an old lady?" Kate tilts her head to the side and places her hands on her hips. "She'll be gone until like six." She glances over at the clock on the mantel. It was a little past three. "But seriously…why?"

"You want to explain why you have me here? I won't exactly fit as a friend from school," Seth points out, turning to her and waving a hand at himself.

Kate takes in a breath and nods. "Yeah. I guess. So…are you gonna tell me what happened on Isla de Sacrificios?"

She stayed in place, her feet sinking into the puffy rug. Seth moves and stands in front of her, barely a foot of space between them. "I don't want to," he says, looking her directly in the eyes. "But Richie didn't and I think you should know." He pauses. "Do you want to know?"

Kate isn't sure. She can live with knowing what Richie told her. She can believe it was that simple, that he was truly trying to stop Santanico the entire time he traveled with the ancient culebra and that he sacrificed himself to do so. So does she really need to know all of the juicy details, the ones that Seth didn't really want to say? But, the very fact that Seth doesn't want to tell her makes her want to hear it.

"Tell me," she says softly. "Please."

Seth doesn't move for the longest time but then he nods and looks down. "Okay. Sit down."

Kate sits on the edge of the sofa and pulls her legs up and under her, resting against the back cushion and propping her elbow against the back of the couch. Seth sits on the other end, feet flat against the floor. He hunches forward and rests his forearms on his elbows, pressing his hands together. "Yeah, so…I got a boat over to the island," he says. Kate feels like she's being transported back to six months ago, sitting in that hotel room as the Gecko brothers save the world.

8

Seth paints a picture for her of what happened on the island.

Santanico moves into the temple, pulled by the darkness and blood within her. Kate didn't know why there was such a pattern of destruction in the wake of Richie and Santanico. She had theories, but Seth explains what Richie told him when they met up.

He had to move through these supernatural trials, to break the hold of the gods of night and bring Santanico one step farther from enslavement. That's what was causing all of the dark omens. Seth doesn't tell her everything Richie did. It's too much to remember, too much to process and spit back out, especially for Seth. Kate takes what he gives her.

Kate imagines everything Seth tells her. The dank and desolate tunnels, worse than even the temple under the Titty Twister. Everything is covered in blood and carvings and there are culebra everywhere. But they leave them alone. They ignore Seth even though he's human. It's something to do with Richie. Seth just isn't sure what it is exactly, but he accepts it.

And then everything hits the fan. Santanico starts ripping the throats out of culebra warriors deprived of blood and words for centuries, and the others start attacking. Seth is soon covered in blood and Richie is fighting them off of him too as their fangs sink through his clothes. Santanico sees and stops them, which is just what Richie was waiting for her to do. They hold Seth back, but don't bite him. Santanico thinks that Richie is going to help her, but he's not. He wants to, a deep primal part wants to, but he thinks of Seth struggling in the corner and Seth keeps saying  _Kate, think about Kate,_  and Richie can't do it.

He grabs one of the sacrificial knives and hides it behind his back before he grabs Santanico's hair and yanks her head to the side, sinking his fangs into her neck, drinking more than giving, her blood gushing from his mouth and down his chin to his soak his collar. She's stunned and he tosses her aside before sinking the blade deep in his own abdomen. Seth yells but Richie tells him to be quiet. Santanico is gasping, barely moving, and Richie lays out the plan. How he never gave her all of the blood from the Sasak Ukib, so her strength has been building within him all this time. He cuts himself open and pulls out guts and snake, bloody and writhing. Richie pushes his own insides back where they belonged and the skin heals.

He then recites the same words Santanico had been teaching him the past few weeks and lifts up the snake, the personification of Santanico's curse and power, and slices it right down the middle. The ground shudders and Santanico screams, turning into that beastly form that Kate never saw but that Seth describes as the most unattractive thing he'd ever seen.

The temple trembles more. The culebra holding Seth let go and he fights them to ash as Richie struggles with the five hundred year old having a temper tantrum. It takes the two of them to take her down, and by the end of it Seth can barely stand and Richie's lost more blood than he lets on, but he supports his brother and they get out of there before the walls come down, crumbling to ruins.

8

"I felt that. I watched the lighthouse fall," Kate says. By now, she's pulled her legs up to her chest and her arms are circled tightly around them as she tries to stop her body from shaking. She can remember having to fix up Seth, sew up slashes and wash off the blood. There was so much. And Richie…

"Yeah. And you know the rest," Seth says with a flourish. Not surprisingly, he is a spectacular storyteller and Kate hasn't even felt more than a handful of minutes slip by.

She glances at the clock on the mantle and finds, startling, that an hour has passed. "And what now? You mentioned Scott," she says, her voice falling when she says her brother's name. She can barely force it out of her throat.

Seth clenches his jaw and nods. "Yeah. I uh…I got a call from Carlos."

Kate has never met Carlos, but she knows the name and she vaguely remembers him being the one to introduce Santanico Pandemonium when she got on stage to do that sexy dance with the python. She also pieced it together from Ranger Gonzalez that her brother was with Carlos now. "What did he want?" she asks, trying to keep her voice void of any emotion, but it is hard.

Seth sits back against the couch and stretches out a little. He can get comfortable anywhere; it's one thing he does that Kate is envious of. "He and this guy, this culebra, Narciso, are buddies now, rebuilding their friggen vampire council bullshit."

Kate raises her eyebrows slightly. It has been six months since Santanico's demise. What is stirring things up now? "And?"

"And, turns out it was in the counselor's favor to have Santanico dead, thinking her death would appease their gods and all that shit."

It's what they all thought. That's why they killed Santanico that way.

"But now, Carlos doesn't like what the council's doing and he wants out. Your brother is still with him. He mentioned letting Scott go if we team up. Try to figure out a way to stop the crazies from getting full power of the," Seth pauses and throws a hand up, still not accustomed to talking about things like Mexican brand vampires, "fucking culebra kings or whatever."

Kate takes in a breath and lets it out. Nothing about the simple bodily function feels fluid. She untangles her fingers from each other and stands, even though her legs are shaking. She paces, because she can't sit still anymore. She crosses her arms and bites her bottom lip.

"So, what does this mean? Are you…" she stops and turns to face him, looking down at him for once, "you're gonna make a deal with Carlos? He took all your money, Seth. He stabbed you in the back, almost killed Richie, bit…bit my brother and you're gonna make a deal with him?" Her voice raises as she speaks.

Seth rolls his head on his shoulders and closes his eyes. "Kate…it's not as easy as that. Look, we both know that the two of us are never gonna be able to shake this culebra shit, and I felt like…" He stops and she sighs, sitting next to him and putting her hand lightly next to her leg, pressing her pinky against the side of his thigh. "I felt like a third wheel during our wild goose chase. Carlos came to me for help. He may just be outta options, but I'll take what I can get."

"And you came to find me, because…?" Kate asks after the air grew quiet. Her eyes are trained on the coffee table, covered in a lace doily and a vase of fresh flowers.

"I want you to come with me," he says without hesitation, shifting his torso away from her and resting his hand on the middle of her back. He slid his hand up to her neck, his hand staying there warm and rough. "It's your brother, Kate. You told me once that even though Richie was a culebra, he was still my brother. And I know you wanna forget everything that happened, and I don't blame you, but I still think you should come with me."

Kate swallows, her pulse quickening. She turns her eyes gingerly upward until she's looking at his, deep brown and filled with the same sort of struggles that she was facing. She opens her mouth to speak, but only takes in a breath and closes her eyes. She exhales and opens her eyes quickly. "Let me pack a bag."

8

"I'm not gonna lie," Seth says once they are on the road heading south.

"About what?" Kate asks, leaning her head back against the seat. She should be more worried about running away, but she left her aunt a note and she didn't take a cell with her so she couldn't be tracked. Seth was so good at evading people that she had no doubt that she would never be found unless she wanted to. She just wants to enjoy this moment, the freedom of the wind in her hair, a bag in the trunk and a destination on the horizon.

"I was kind of expecting you to be…"

"What?" She squints over at him.

He glances over at her slim figure. "Uh…knocked up?" He says it innocently, like he really didn't want to say it but he did anyway.

"Excuse me?" Kate squeaks, pushing herself up in the seat and feeling her muscles tense not from adrenaline for a fight, but from embarrassment more than anything.

Seth rolls his eyes and faces the road. "Y'know…you and Richie, Boca Del Rio. I know for a fact that Richie never went around packing condoms, human or otherwise."

Kate scoffs and crosses her arms. "Not that it's any of your business, but I can't have children," she says simply, the words rolling off her tongue with a bite that she's adopted since being thrust back into  _normal_  social situations. Before Seth can even think to eat his words, she half turns in her seat to face him. "Why are you suddenly thinkin' about this anyway? It's kind of pervy…"

Seth took in and let out a breath. "I dunno exactly. Just found myself wondering about it, alright?"

"Sheesh, you're the one who brought it up," Kate rolls her eyes and leans her elbow against the door. "If you don't wanna talk about somethin', don't bring it up."

They sit in brimming silence until Seth turns up the radio and Kate rolls her eyes. She watches the scenery pass by.

"Why can't you have kids?"

" _Oh_  my God," Kate breaths out, reaching to turn down the stereo dial a little. "Are you seriously askin' me that?"

Seth shrugs, his hand resting on top of the steering wheel, his eyes trained toward the road in front of them. "You brought it up."

"You asked me first!"

He raises his eyebrows and keeps quiet. The silence becomes stifling.

"I'm not tellin' you," Kate says finally, crossing her arms and sinking down in the seat. "I don't like thinkin' about it."

Seth swallows and glances over at her. Her face says everything, that mask of determination and stubbornness hiding something much deeper. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked," he says quickly, even though they both know he just should have kept his mouth shut to begin with.

8

It's getting later and later, the sky is dark and the roads are now illuminated solely by the Camaro's headlights. Kate's hungry and tired, and Seth hasn't let her drive once.

"When are we gonna stop?" she asks when she checks her leather bound watch and sees it reading seven-twenty.

"About now," he says. Sure enough, there's signs for a hotel up the road a ways, the  _no_  in front of vacancy unlit. "We're crossing the border in Nogales."

Kate makes a face. "Why?"

"Carlos is getting us across." He pulls off the road and into the two spots in front of the office of the hotel. He puts the car in park and leans down close to Kate's legs, reaching for the glovebox. Kate sucks in a breath and lets it out when she sees not a gun but an orange envelop. "Fake passports to get us through. Carlos will be there if there's any trouble."

Kate nods and he hides the passports again. He then hands her a wad of cash and asks her to go get them a room. She folds her fingers around the bills and looks at him pointedly. "You're serious?"

"Uh…yes. I'm still wanted, Kate, I need to make as few public appearances as possible."

He has a point. She nods and steps out of the car, pausing to stretch out her limbs. It feels amazing to stand, her back pops and cracks and she yawns. Pulling her shirt down over her hips, she walks into the small office. There's a woman working there.

"Evening," she says.

Kate smiles at her and realizes that they've crossed the Arizona border. They're somewhere close to Yuma by the big star slapped on the map on the counter. "Hi. I need a room for the night," she says, unsure what else to say.

The woman nods and stands up, pulling down a clipboard with some papers on it. "You're just in time. We have one room left," she says, handing Kate the information board.

Kate's throat dries. She hadn't gotten a good look at her fake passport identity. But she can do this. She can lie. She doesn't want to get traced and she doesn't want Seth to go back to prison. "Just one?" she asks, though she and Seth always shared a room.

"Just one bed, a queen, is that alright, honey?"

Kate almost says no, but that would cause a scene. So she just nods and takes the pen. Scribbling down a few things. Her name is  _Jennifer Mills_ , her mother's maiden name. Her address is one of her friends' uncle's back in Dallas, because she always remembers it. She likes it because he lives on Cinnamon Street. She bypasses credit card information and hands over the bills. In return, she gets the room key and rejoins Seth in the car.

"107, around the corner," she says once she closes the door.

8

Kate's been keeping it together as long as she has been with Seth. He leaves to buy some food and some booze, saying they had to lay low here until he got another call from Carlos, and she's left alone. She turns off the hotel lights and sits on the end of the bed in silence. Her hands get tighter and tighter in their grip against the edge of the mattress.

Her head is swimming. She thinks of her life before all of the culebra, when her family was happy, at least on the outside. When the worst thing she had to worry about was if Scott was going to eat all of the cereal before she got downstairs. She's choking on the sobs at her mother's funeral, dressed in black, Scott's hand gripping her own even though he would never admit it afterward. She thinks of the hero he tried to become, pointing a gun at Richie in the RV, trying to do something, anything to free them from the brothers' plans.

Her thoughts venture to those of Richie. Of the way his skin was rough against hers when their fingers curled together and she prayed for him. She remembers the faith she put into him, the way she trusted him without knowing why and the way she couldn't stop dreaming and needing him even after he was gone. The warmth that came back to his skin as he turned back to being a human before her very eyes, the way he both mended and broke her soul in a single day.

Kate is there, in a dark hotel room on the border of California and Arizona, sobbing into the shadows when Seth comes back. He says nothing, only uses the very little light coming through the window to pick her up as if she weighed nothing and laying her down on the bed. He takes off her shoes and she presses the back of her wrist against her eyes, but she can't stop crying.

The bed dips down and Seth lays beside her. He's just as clothed as she is, and all he does is press his fingertips against the palm of her hand lying at her side. He doesn't say anything or do anything else. Eventually the tears stop and they both fall asleep, though it's only fifteen after eight.

8

They eat the food Seth bought at 5AM for a breakfast of sorts. Kate wants to drink wine but Seth won't let her so early. They eat in silence and don't talk about the night. Kate shudders to think what she would have done if she had less light in her soul. She hates to think of it, but she probably would have killed herself by now. It is already killing her spirit to keep all of these terrors locked up within her. How could she tell Geraldine about stumbling into the den of ancient Mayan vampires? How could she describe the way her soul sang when Richie was alive and how it feels so flat and grey now that he was gone? How could she describe the way it feels to kill culebra, the sense of righteousness it gave her? And how would she ever be able to face killing her own father?

She can't. She can't tell Geraldine those things and she can barely imagine telling them to Seth, but she has to tell someone or she's going to burst.

8

"There's a pool," Seth says.

Kate blinks across the table at him. "What?"

"Here, there's a pool. I know you like to swim."

Her fingers suddenly itch for a cigarette and she clenches her hand into a fist. "I'm okay. It's January anyway," she says.

It's still warm here, but she's right. Unless it's inside, there's no way a sane person would jump into a pool right about now. Seth shrugs and crumples up wrappers. "You okay?" he asks, because it has to be said.

She almost immediately answers "I'm fine" but that would be a lie. Instead, she picks at the edge of her wrap and shakes her head. "Not really," she says with a sigh, begrudging having to look at him but she does it anyway.

She's not met with pity, but accessibility. He knows exactly what she means. "Wanna talk about it?"

She swallows. "Not right now," she says, pushing what's left of her food over toward him. "Maybe later. I'm gonna shower."

8

The room fills with the background noise of movies and Kate keeps running her hands through her wet hair until there's a dark puddle around her on the bed. She's dressed in cotton shorts and a white t-shirt, the back of which is soaked through. Her baby blue bra could be seen, but she doesn't care.

She stays away from the news channels and Seth joins her, fully scrubbed and wearing little. He stretches out against the blanket and props his head up with extra pillows so he can see the TV. Kate doesn't move, her eyes trained on the Lifetime movie currently playing.

"Y'know, I kept tryin' just to ignore everythin' that happened," Kate says softly, once the room is filled with nothing but soft sounds of breathing and the low voices on the television. She starts pulling her hair into strands. It's a lot longer than Seth remembers. She hasn't really cut it except for split ends ever since she arrived on Great-Aunt Hannah's doorstep. She starts braiding it from the crown of her head in a series of flawless finger and arm movements that Seth can't keep his eyes off of because it's complicated and yet she's not even hesitating or using a mirror, she's just twisting and folding, and it's sort of mesmerizing.

"Yeah," he says. "That's why I went to Vegas. Thought conning people would make me feel better, but it didn't."

Kate lets out a breath and her back arches as she stretches her arms up and moves down her scalp, gathering new chunks of hair to cross each time. "I don't like thinkin' about it, but I've changed. A lot. I ain't the same girl I was over the summer and I just dunno how to act around people who aren't…"

"Who aren't what?"

"Who aren't you," she finishes, moving farther down the braid until it morphs into a normal plait that goes even quicker than the rest. She ties off the end and lets her back curve, her shoulders sagging. Her muscles thank her for relief from the strain and her spine makes a mountain ridge down the middle of her back.

"Ahh," he says and she twists around to see a smirk settled on his lips. She resists the urge to roll her eyes, and slaps her knuckles across the side of his ribcage instead. He resorts to a chuckle.

"I'm bein' serious."

"You're right, I'm sorry," Seth says, folding his arms behind his head.

Kate sighs and eventually scoots back until she can lean against the headboard. She steals one of Seth's pillows and stretches out her legs, crossing her ankles. It is still early in the day, barely nine o'clock, and they've both been awake for around four hours.

"What're we gonna do?" she asks finally, folding her hands over her abdomen.

"What'd you mean?"

"I mean today. If we're just waiting for a call, what're we gonna do with all this time?" She waves a hand at the alarm clock next to him, blaring the morning hour in red.

Seth shrugs. "Watch some movies. Chill out. Talk a little. I gotta grab some supplies later. Maybe I'll give you the Camaro's keys and you can get some air."

She knows that he doesn't want to go out too often. But she doesn't feel used, like an excuse or someone he needed around to run errands. She decided to come with him. He wouldn't have forced her if she said no. She just couldn't stay in that dreaded school, around those teenagers who knew nothing of the world, around her aunt who would never understand, and around a world that wasn't filled with things like authentic Mexican food, dark hotel rooms and a man at her side. Not a boy, not a guy, a man. Because there is a big difference, and Seth is most definitely the latter of the three.

"Okay," she agrees and sinks a little lower.

8

Kate comes back with supplies and food and they eat dinner at seven, even though they're both starving long before then. Seth's mostly dressed, his tattoo showing through the sleeve of the white shirt he has on, unbuttoned but still hanging off his shoulders. Kate changes the channel to something a little more uplifting. Without even asking, she opens the bottle of wine he bought the previous day.

"Wait, wait," he says, grabbing the bottle from her before she can drink right from it. "Did you pay for another night?"

Kate rolls her eyes. "Yes," she says, snatching the bottle back. She takes a swig and makes a face because it's bitter, but she doesn't hate it. She puts it back down against the table and moves to the bed once she cleans up the food wrappers. She turns up the television and soon he joins her with a six-pack of beer. The only thing that would make this better would be cigarettes, but neither of them have any.

8

Her mind is swimming with wine, the heavy taste of it lingering at the back of her throat. If she were sober, she'd know this was a bad idea. Seth had put back the rest of the bottle and a few beers but he still has more control over himself than she does.

"Seth," she breathes out, her tongue heavy and hard to move. She presses her hands against his shoulders and leans against him. Somehow he doesn't fall over, and she doesn't either because she's using him to stay upright. "D'you remember the time you kissed me?"

She does. They were in Mexico, within a few hours drive of Boca Del Rio, and Kate had been so caught up in finding Richie that Seth was beginning to feel like an unwanted third wheel. He kissed her thinking that was what she wanted, the only thing she wanted, from his brother, and she had gotten furious at him; because that was  _not_  the only thing that she wanted from Richie.

But now, her soul has a spot carved out of it that only a Gecko could fill.

"Yeah," Seth says, leaning back a little.

Kate nods but it makes her world swim so she closes her eyes until it settles, her fingers digging into his shirt. She opens her eyes a fraction of an inch and then she leans in clumsily. He tastes hoppy and she tastes bitter.

Only one of them has enough sense to stop.

Seth wraps his hands around her waist and pushes her away, but holds her steady. "Whoa, no," he says, shaking his head sharply.

Kate blinks and frowns. "No, what?" she asks, sounding offended, using the same tone Richie did whenever someone misquoted a movie or said something wrong that he knew as simply as anyone knew two-plus-two.

"I ain't jumping on that bandwagon," he says, moving her easily to sit on the bed next to him.

Her world swirls and the floor moves. She grips the edge of the mattress. "What does that mean?" she asks softly, barely pronouncing the words.

"It means…" he pauses, like he knows she won't remember the exact words, and he's feeling pretty buzzed right now anyway, "you were my brother's girl first, and I'm not that kind of guy."

Kate sighs and nods, blinking heavily before she leans against his shoulder. She catalogues away those words for future reference and closes her eyes.

"I think I may throw up," she says, breaking the silence.

8

Kate barely remembers anything in the morning. Her eyes crack open at six and she vows to never drink again. Seth wakes up before her and brings her water and aspirin and smooths a hand over her hair to wake her up gently.

"I feel gross," she mumbles, forcing herself slowly up enough to down the pills and gulp the rest of the water.

"You drank almost an entire bottle of wine. By yourself," Seth points out. She glares at him. "If I recall, the only other thing you've ever drank was that whiskey back at the Twister." He says it casually, just a memory, encased in madness, but he's only focusing on that one part.

Only that one part involves her brother and father. Kate flops down against the bed and rubs her eyes and temples with her fingertips. "Yeah, that was a first," she says softly, staring at the ceiling. Soon her vision is filled not with popcorn texture, but Seth's face, peering down at her.

"You okay, kid?" he asks, voice all soft and rustic.

Her lips twitch upward just because she can't believe she's actually here, that here is with Seth and they're going to find her brother and stop culebra politics from turning into something worse than it already was. "Yeah," she sighs through her nose. "How much longer do we have to stay here?"

Seth lets out a sigh of his own and disappears from her limited vision. "Dunno. Carlos should be calling within the next twenty-four hours."

"Can't you call him?"

"No." That's all he says.

8

When Kate was a kid, she used to dream of what her life would be in ten years down the road. She'd be half through college. She'd be in a dance club and try to go to church on Sundays if she was close enough to one. She would have friends and a nice boyfriend who wouldn't pressure her. She'd try drinking but not really like it, and she'd study amazing things like Italian art history and animal biology. At the time, she was ten, but a mature ten, and she wanted to be a veterinarian.

This was nothing like what he life at eighteen turned out to be. Even two years tacked on wouldn't create all of those things. She didn't want to go to college. She feared it, more than she feared living out of a car and saving up money she made in low-end jobs.

She would never be a thief, but that didn't mean she wouldn't keep company with one.

8

"Do you believe in love?" Kate asks suddenly, because she can still taste the wine on her tongue and feel his lips against hers, even through the drunken veil. They're sitting on the bed again, watching TV because there's nothing else to do.

"I love my ex-wife," he explains.

Kate arches an eyebrow and looks over at him. "You love your  _ex_ -wife?"

"Yeah. It's complicated."

Kate waits, staring at him, until he sighs and continues. "I love her, right? But I also hate her, a lot of the time," he nods and moves his hands around emphatically, "so it's a little confusing."

Kate wants to ask him about it, but his phone vibrates and he bolts off the bed like something bit him. It's Carlos. Seth doesn't leave the room to talk, and his voice booms and fills the room. Kate pulls her legs up to her chest and watches him pace and wave his hands around.

The moment he hangs up, she leans forward and asks, "What did he say?"

"We're crossing at ten tomorrow. It's almost a five hour drive, pack your stuff now, we'll leave in the morning," he says, sounding a lot like the Seth that had told her that she would get through that day with no bumps or scrapes.

Kate feels excitement build up in her veins. She's  _that_  much closer to seeing her brother again, to see how he's adapted to this new state of being. Daddy said that Scott was young, that he would adapt and learn to live with who he was now, and Kate has been skeptical but she has faith that he will be her brother still, underneath the scales and bloodlust.

8

Seth drives again. Kate doesn't mind. She turns up the music and sings or hums along, trying her hardest not to think about anything as much as was physically possible.

"You okay over there, princess?" Seth asks after the silence stretches too far.

Kate blinks and pulls herself away from the window where her eyes have glazed over and her wrist has grown sore from holding her chin up. "Hmm? What?"

"You okay?" he repeats.

She nods and looks out through the windshield, eyebrows furrowing. "Where are we?"

Seth grips the top of the wheel. "Close. Here." He slows down and pulls the car to the side of the road. He shoves it into park and leans down again, pulling out the envelope from the glove compartment. Opening the packet, he pulls out the two passport, the fake US IDs, and tips the envelope all the way over. Three rings fall into his palm.

Kate raises her eyebrows. "What are those?" she asks softly as he drops the passports and IDs into her lap and grabs into her left hand.

"Wedding rings," he says simply, slipping a small silver band, followed by the more glittery engagement ring sparkling with a diamond, around her finger

Kate tries not to squirm, her eyes settled on the rings. She sees him push a simple band on his left ring finger out of the corner of her eyes. "Why?" she finally gets out.

"The most convincing way to get across the boarder is to be blood related or legally tied," Seth says, not noticing the look of shock and discomfort floating across her face. He grabs the two IDs and holds them up. They both have the same last name, and hers makes her three years older than she actually is. She doesn't know how close Seth's age is on his.

Kate swallows and closes her left hand into a fist. The rings fit pretty well, the weight of them, however, does not. It feels dirty. Dirtier than sleeping in dingy hotel rooms and killing culebra, dirtier than having sex or getting drunk. To Kate, marriage is a sacred bond. One that isn't to be taken lightly. Yet here she was, pulled into a con of Seth's that she isn't allowed to bow out of. She tries to compartmentalize; it's the only way she'll get through this. She keeps telling herself that she'll see Scott, that there is more behind this trip than just to run away from high school.

"What's our cover story?" she asks finally, throat tight.

Seth smirks, dropping the IDs into her lap again, and starting to drive. "Dunno. Married recently. Heading south for some sightseeing. Maybe business?"

Kate arches an eyebrow. "You're the master thief, shouldn't you have some big elaborate story cooked up?"

Seth keeps his eyes forward. "I figured we could work on it together. It'd feel more natural."

Kate's chest constricts. She doesn't know how she knows, but she does. He's thinking about Richie, about how he and Richie were always the ones to make the plans on cons, how he is now stuck with Kate and missing Richie much more than he would ever be able to put into words.

Kate can think of the words for him. She reaches over and slips her newly accented hand over his, resting over the gearshift. "Okay," she says.

They spend the rest of the trip to the border coming up with an elaborate story. They don't need every detail that they come up with, but it passes the time and there's more smiles and hints of laughter filtering through the air between them when they're slowed down at the crossing.

Nogales is the easiest border crossing. The city itself is poor, and they're more concerned with people getting  _out_  of Mexico than in.

Kate just hopes that no one recognizes Seth for who he is.

The car idles and Kate starts shaking her leg out of habit and nervousness. Seth reaches over and lays his hand over her knee, stopping the movement. He goes to take his hand back but she grabs on and keeps it, lacing her fingers through his. He doesn't say anything, only urges the car onward.

Not long after, someone dressed in green comes up to their car. It's a woman.

"Good morning," she says, though she doesn't look all that happy to be out here. Kate can't blame her. "Can I see your passports please?'

"Sure thing," Seth says and Kate hands them over. Their IDs have been replaced in their wallets so it would look less conspicuous if they were also asked for them.

The woman flips them open and glances from the pictures—Kate doesn't know how Seth got a photo of her and she doesn't ask—and nods, handing them back through the window. "Can I ask what you're purpose is in Mexico?"

Seth unlaces their fingers to take back the passports and gives the border patrol woman a winning Gecko smile. "Vacation mostly, tied into a business trip. My girl's never been out of the States, so I figured I'd roll a vacation into the mix." The words float off his tongue like honey, and it shows Kate why he's such a good con man.

The woman glances into the car, at their rings and into the backseat. For a second Kate wonders if she's going to ask them to pop the trunk where all of their weapons are, but instead, she just nods and points. "Alright, just head up to that line. Have a good day," she says automatically.

"Thank you, have a great day yourself," Seth lathers on. Kate resists an urge to roll her eyes as they inch out of that line to one that is shorter.

"That was insane," Kate mutters once they're sitting there waiting.

Seth smirks. "What'd you mean? It went flawlessly."

"That's exactly what I mean," she says, shaking her head. She glances down at her hands and tucks them against her sides, not asking if she can take the ring off or not. Instead, she looks ahead at the two cars in front of them and the man in the booth letting them through. It's a slow crawl.

Seth looks out the window too, his eyes always scanning, scanning for Carlos and whoever else he is bringing to gather them up from the border. They are almost close enough to see Nogales in the distance. It was that stereotypical view of Mexico, with pueblo-like houses built so close that you couldn't tell where one ended and another began, where the streets were dirt and smelly, where kids bartered bracelets for coins just to buy food for themselves.

Kate shifts in the seat and sits forward a little as they are let through. She lets out a breath she hadn't realized she's been keeping inside. This is a part of Mexico that she had never visited during their travels, and yet she already feels more at home here than she ever did back in San Diego.

"Where now?" Kate asks, her voice low as if she expected to be overheard.

"Carlos gave me a spot where we're supposed to be meeting him," Seth says. "Outside the city."

They drive the mile to the crossing into the city of Nogales, the one you went through by foot, and they turned left on one of the dirt roads. Kate looks at the lives of destitute around them as they pass, the browns and reds turning into a blur. Then they pull away from the houses and buildings and drive out across more flat land.

Up ahead is a small caravan of black SUVs. There are just two of them. Kate feels her throat grow dry and she forces herself not to perch on the edge of the seat.

Seth slows the Camaro when they get close. The dust settles down and someone gets out of the car wearing a leather jacket, wide-brimmed hat and gloves, every inch of him covered in clothing.

"Carlos," Seth mutters under his breath.

Kate searches for her brother, but no one else gets out of the car. Seth puts the car into park and cuts the engine. He looks over at her and holds her gaze for a lingering moment before getting out. Kate follows, moving to stand beside them. They meet Carlos in the middle.

"Seth, so nice of you to accept my invitation," Carlos says, the words rolling off his tongue in an accent that isn't quite the usual Mexican. His eyes move to Kate and he looks her up and down pointedly. She doesn't flinch or shrink, meeting his eyes head on. He gives her a smile that's verging on manic, then turns back to Seth. "I gather this trip went better than the last."

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Seth says, his annoyance levels high. "So how are we doing this? And what are we actually doing?" He always gets lost when people started talking about gods and monsters. He wasn't wired to believe in such things.

Carlos nods. "We'll talk about that soon enough. Let's get out of this sun, shall we? I have food waiting back at my office."

Seth scoffs. " _Office_?"

"Seth," Kate says softly, reaching out a hand to brush her fingertips against his arm, over the flames embedded in his skin. She knows that Carlos is over five hundred years old, and that pissing him off even more so than he already appeared to be, isn't going to help any of them.

Seth waves an arm. "Fine. We'll talk in your  _office_. If this is a trap, just know, we've got a trunk full of weapons."

"Trap? Seth, that hurts," Carlos says with such fake sincerity that it makes Kate's skin crawl. He then dips his hat to her and she finds herself stepping closer to Seth. "Just follow my SUV. It's not far."

He moves to the nearest vehicle and Seth and Kate return to their own. Kate sits and clenches her hands together between her knees. The SUVs start up and Seth follows the first one, the second one driving behind them.

"You okay?" Seth echoes from earlier.

Kate shakes her head, forcing herself to sit back. She crosses her arms tightly. "I don't like him," she says.

"No one likes him."

"I  _really_  don't like him."

Seth looks over at her for such a long time she fears he's going to crash the car. "Kate, do you trust me?"

She sucks in a breath. She has never really been faced with this question before. But she knows that she feels safest with Seth, that her emotions are a little confused and muddled, but she wouldn't want to be anywhere but by his side. "Yes," she says after a beat.

He nods. "Good. Then we'll be fine. Remember my promise? No bumps or scrapes."

The corner of her mouth twitches upward. "Okay."

Carlos's new base of operations is outside of Nogales, on the southern outskirts. The SUV guides them and they pull all the vehicles directly inside an enormous hanger. Everyone gets out and Seth and Kate find themselves greatly outnumbered. Kate can't help but search for Seth's hand in the darkened space. She loops her fingers around his wrist and he doesn't move away.

"Right this way, we'll have an early lunch," Carlos instructs, taking off his hat and gloves as he walks. They go through a doorway to a smaller room where there's a table and chairs. Everything is rough and feels like it belongs in a movie.

The other culebra from the SUVs don't join them, and that leaves just the two of them and Carlos. They all sit at the table, Carlos at one end, Seth next to him on one side and Kate in the second chair. Tamales of beef and red chilies are passed between them, and Carlos speaks.

"I see you brought just the girl. Where's your brother?" The tone of his voice tells them both that he knows exactly what happened to Richie.

Seth finishes his bite of tamale and Kate doesn't think she could answer even if her mouth wasn't filled. "He died," Seth says, the words biting through Kate even all these months later. That hole in her soul starts to get both hot and cold.

"Shame," Carlos says without compassion.

An awkward silence overcomes the room until Seth can't stand it. "Okay, Carlos, what exactly is going on here?"

Carlos sits back and drops the white plastic fork. He sits like he's on a throne and not on a hard backed plastic chair. "A little bit of everything. Before Santanico's death, the council of the Nine Lords has been replenished. I've joined their ranks, but since the mistress's demise, the old gods have been restless."

"I take it that's a bad thing," Seth says, still wrapping his head around this new world he is living in.

"Yes, you don't want the Nine Lords to gain passage to this earth," Carlos says. "No one does. The destruction they would bring would mean the end of my world, as well as your own."

Kate shivers and finds her gaze drawn to Carlos once again. It's like she wants to look anywhere but at him, and yet she can't make her eyes move anywhere else. "Gods aren't meant for this earthly plane," she says softly.

He tilts his head in agreement. "Exactly. Your  _novia_  has the right idea, Seth."

Seth narrows his eyes at the culebra. "Why do you need our help?" He tries to keep his cool. That's his thing, keeping his cool.

Carlos's tongue slides over his teeth and he sits forward, folding his hands. "It comes down to very simple terms. The only way to sate the Nine Lords is to capture their power and give them more sacrifice."

"Hey, buddy, I ain't killing no one for your  _gods_ ," Seth interrupts.

Carlos glares. "But that isn't working anymore. The new council members are…greedy. Envious even."

"Sorry to break it to you, Carlito, but you're the greediest son of a bitch I've ever met."

Kate almost kicks Seth under the table to shut him up, but she can barely move.

"Believe me when I say that these men are worse."

"So what? We kill them for you?"

Carlos frowns. "No. We must make another sacrifice like that of Santanico, five centuries ago. There must be another mistress of the night to drown their wants and desires."

Kate's eyebrows have skyrocketed and she shifts in her chair. She opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out.

Just then, another set of boots echo across the floor and someone comes rushing in, words toppling out of his mouth.

"Carlos, there's something wrong with the…th…."

Kate's eyes widen as he steps into the light. "Scott?" she whispers.

He doesn't look like the Scott she remembers, but her own words come back to her through Seth: he's still your brother. She wishes that she could fix him, that she could have him bite her and turn him human again the way she did Richie. But that was a one time deal, a specialty because of a prophesized connection. She has no such connection with her brother, and she wouldn't force him to become something he no longer wanted to be.

He is all that is left of her family, the only part left alive. Or, as alive as his life after death could make him.

Any part of her that was keeping Kate in that chair is gone. She jumps up and throws herself at her brother, a shaking sob escaping and echoing through the nearly empty room with its metal walls. She doesn't care that he's a culebra. She hugs him and waits for him to hug her back. He does, slowly and loosely.

"Kate, what're you doing here?" he asks, his voice sharp, upset with her.

She steps back and keeps her fingers digging into his arms, refusing to let him go. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again," she says, ignoring his question. "I thought you'd be lost in that temple forever."

"Oh, how sweet," Carlos's sharp yet smooth voice breaks through the air. "Seth, business?"

Seth nods. "Kate," he says, standing up and taking a step closer. "C'mon, sit down." He grabs her arm gently and pulls her away from Scott.

"Scott, take whatever's gone wrong and talk to Manuel," Carlos says.

"You shouldn't be here," Scott hisses to Kate before she's tugged away and he disappears into the shadows.

Seth pushes her down into the seat next to his again and she stares at the place where her brother had been.

"Why do you need us, Carlos?" Seth asks, sticking to the plan, as always. He doesn't want to be here with Carlos, he doesn't like the feel of this entire deal, but the last thing he wants to do is put Kate in danger. Pissing off Carlos would put her in more danger than never coming here in the first place.

Carlos doesn't reply right away, his eyes shadowed by the dim lighting of the enormous metal room.

Seth raises his eyebrows and sits forward in the seat, pointing toward him. "Well? A heist?"

"Not exactly."

"Not exactly? What do you mean not exactly?" Seth asks, banging his palm down against the table.

Carlos looks at Kate, sitting forward into a stream of light from a bare bulb. "It's a good thing you brought her," he says, pointing.

"Excuse me?" Seth says at the same time that Kate exclaims, "What?"

Carlos smirks. "Don't worry, I'm not going to sacrifice her. There are certain qualities that a sacrifice has to have. Virginity, star alignment, purity. Are you a virgin,  _chiquita_?"

"Whoa, man," Seth exclaims, clearly offended that such a question was asked.

"No," Kate says, sitting forward and looking at the cartel leader. She's thankful for the darkness and the seats, because her legs feel like Jello and her torso is shaking.

Carlos sits back and tosses both of his hands up. "See? No need to worry."

Seth sighs and presses his lips together in a thin line. "Okay. Then what the fuck are we doing here?"

Carlos puts his fingertips together into a steeple shape. "We need to get the sacrifice. I need  _you_  to get the sacrifice."

"What? Kidnapping? You want me to kidnap someone? I'm not a kidnapper, I'm a thief, Carlos," Seth says, emphasizing the name.

Carlos's lips downturn and he blinks slowly. "Okay, then the Nine Lords will arrive and flay the skin off your bones before anyone else."

"Why would you say that?" Kate asks. Not because she doesn't think it's true or that she's surprised he would say such a thing. "Why would you say us first? If you're tryin' to keep your gods from doin' what they wanna do, wouldn't they come after you first?"

Seth lifts his eyebrows and sits back, not bothering hiding his look of surprise and agreement. He crosses his arms and looks at Carlos.

"Such spirit," Carlos chuckles. "The truth is,  _mis amigos_ —" Seth rolls his eyes, "—it would be a lot easier to get our sacrifice if we have a young girl in the mix. It would be less…kidnapping and more of a…bonding experience."

Seth clenches his jaw and glances over at Kate. "Really? It's not kidnapping if I have a girl with me, even though, and let me reiterate here, we're going to sacrifice her to Nine Lords of Night where she will forever be enslaved with an insatiable bloodlust."

"You make it sound so terrible, Seth," Carlos says. "Would you rather my gods come to the earth and cause a human genocide?"

Seth clenches his jaw and his fists. "And if we help you do this, you'll let Kate's brother out of your…service, or whatever?"

Carlos sucks in a breath and sits back. "If it works, if the Nine Lords are sated, then I will release Scott from his duty to me."

Kate has to get emotional, it's the only way she can ever show that she's still human, that she's higher than the culebra, that she's still her. Emotions fuel her, and they have for her entire life, she can't give that up now. So she holds onto the hope of reuniting with her brother for real. But she will have to do many things she's not proud of to get there. But it's her brother, she tells herself, it's her brother and she can't give up on him because he's still here. She needs him.

"Okay," Kate says, sitting forward and answering before Seth can.

"Wait, Kate," Seth says, turning toward her, his back to Carlos for the first time since they left the car.

"I don't care. I'll do what you want," Kate says, ignoring Seth's protests and looking directly at Carlos. "I'll help you, if you'll give me my brother back."

A slow smirk spreads across his features and he nods slowly. "A deal is a deal. I'll have someone bring you to a room and we can discuss the details after I handle some business."

Seth continues to protest even as Carlos stands and walks away. Seth gets to his feet and Kate does the same, sinking her nails into Seth's arm and stopping him.

"Seth," she says softly.

"Kate," he says sharply, turning to face her. "Do you know what you just did?"

"Yeah." Kate crosses her arms stubbornly. "I know exactly what I just did. I need to get my brother back Seth. I know you know what that feels like."

The aggravation and fighting spirit in Seth floated away. His shoulders fall and he closes his eyes, taking in a breath and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I know."

" _Señor_  Gecko." A new voice interrupted their moment, belonging to someone that looked remarkably similar to Santanico. "I'm here to take you to your room."

Seth grabs Kate's hand firmly, not letting her have a choice in the matter and he nods, waving a hand, like he always did. "Show the way."

8

The room isn't really a room. Sure, it has a door and four walls, the feigned existence of a window, a bare-framed bed and metal sidetable. It feels more like a cushiony jail cell than a bedroom.

Kate has been strong this whole trip, but she's forgotten how much energy it takes to be in this world, to be around beasts that could rip her throat out within seconds and end her life. She tries not to think about her brother and just sits on the edge of the thin mattress, trying not to imagine what may have happened in this room before their arrival.

"You should know, I'm only doing this for you and for Scott," Seth says suddenly, after he stops pacing and running his hands through his short hair over and over again.

"You mean, you don't wanna save the world from the wrath of some ancient Mayan gods?" Kate asks, a bit of an edge to her voice. She almost adds 'again' to the sentence, but she doesn't because it reminds her too much of Richie.

"No, Kate," Seth says, turning to face her and letting each word fall heavy from his mouth, "because I am a criminal, not a hero."

She blinks, a spark of anger building up inside of her. She doesn't know where it comes from, but she's on her feet and crossing her arms tightly, feeling the diamond on her finger digging into the underpart of her arm. Seth's ring still glints on his finger. "I'm not a hero either, Seth," she says with a bite to her words that she doesn't recognize. "I'm eighteen, my family is broken, I can't even  _stand_  to be around anyone my own age, all I think about all the time is you and Richie and fighting  _vampires_  and I sleep with a crossbow under my bed! None of this shit is normal, okay?! I shouldn't feel more comfortable with you than I do with my teachers and my aunt and other teenagers." Her shoulders have fallen by now and her eyes are glossy but she refuses to cry. She digs her fingernails into the fleshy parts of her hands to stop herself from cracking. "This shouldn't be normal for me, Seth. And it shouldn't be normal for you either, but here we are."

"Kate…" Her name rolls of his tongue in a breath and he steps closer. She would have moved back, but there was a bed in her way. She thinks he's going to do something stupid, but he doesn't. He just tentatively puts his hands out and circles them around her elbows. "None of this shit is normal," he echoes her own words back to her.

She nods, keeping her eyes on his face. He steps a little closer and there's not much space between them left to move. He pries apart her arms and loops them around his back. "What…" the word trails off when he slips one arm around her back and another around her neck and shoulders and he pulls her against his chest.

It's a simple embrace, and at first she's all stiff and angry, but she soon caves and tightens her arms around his back and buries her face against his collarbone and closes her eyes. She can pretend that everything is fine for just a moment, that they aren't basically prisoners of Carlos's cartel and they could potentially die before their deal with him was over. All she focuses on is Seth's warm body and the way personal space is no longer an issue with them. It's unspoken, but somewhere between the three weeks of hotels to find Richie and the last few days holed up in Yuma, something shifted between them.

Seth strokes her hair and she digs her hands into his jacket, holding onto him tightly. "Listen, princess," he starts, "we're gonna deal with this sacrifice bullshit and then you and your brother are getting out of here. You'll have some pieces of your family back together. How's that sound?"

Kate would have liked it better if he said that all of them were getting out of there, but she takes what she can get and nods. "Okay."

8

Just having Seth around meant that Kate didn't have nightmares. That first night in Yuma, she's too emotionally drained to dream and it's the best nights sleep she has in ages. The second night, she's drank almost an entire bottle of wine and her brain can't process enough to drag up any horror filled images. The last night, she sleeps lightly and her dreams are stained in murky sunlight like she's drowning, but there's no panic and she drifts awake next to Seth.

It's so different from being caught in the onslaught of terrible nightmares, but she can feel them licking at her brain as she sits in that room on the mattress and Seth eventually sits next to her after he tries the door. It's unlocked, but there is also a massive culebra standing on the other side, telling them to stay put until Carlos finished his business.

So Seth sits next to Kate. The cheapness of the mattress makes it dip and they're sitting as close as two people can, their thighs pressed against each other. Kate keeps twirling the wedding rings until Seth can't stand it and he pulls them off her fingers.

"Hey," she says, grabbing for them, but he holds them out of reach.

"These aren't yours," he tells her, pulling off his ring too and putting them in an inside pocket of his jacket.

Kate frowns and sits back, pressing her palms together and between her thighs to warm up the tips of her fingers. The minutes tick by sluggishly and pretty soon her head is resting on Seth's shoulder. She doesn't mean to fall asleep, but it happens.

Her sleeping schedule has been all out of whack the past few days, and she tells herself it's fine as she drifts off into darkness.

It doesn't stay dark for long. It's broken by red and yellow eyes, and growls start up all around her. She blood starts to race and she grips around in the darkness. She can't feel anything around her, so she slips her hands down her body in search of weapons. She sucks in a breath and can't feel anything. Nothing but clothes. No knives, no stakes, nothing, not even a tie for her hair.

"Shit," she hisses. And then the voices start. They start with growls and moans and then slip into voices. Some of them are more audible than others. She hears her name in male and female voices. "Get away from me."

She clenches her hands into fists and stays still. She can feel them getting closer around her. "Get away from me," she says again. "Leave me alone."

She can't see anything, not even her hand an inch in front of her face. The bodies are equal parts cold and hot and she can feel them getting closer.

Her breathing grows heavy and loud, like it's the only thing she can hear. The voices stop and the eyes disappear.

She curses over and over in her head. A hand slips around her middle from behind and she jumps. She kicks her feet out but the hand just pulls her back against a solid back and she opens her mouth to scream but another hand clamps over her mouth.

She kicks her feet out again and the arm around her middle tightens even more, uncomfortably crushing her soft organs. She sets down her feet and makes a decision. She flicks her tongue out between her lips and the hand twitches and she bites down on a finger. The person behind her growls and it turns into a chuckle. Her blood runs cold. The hand clamps down harder against her mouth and turns her head to the side. Soft lips brush over the shell of her ear. "Blood's sweeter when you struggle."

Kate feels like she's been tossed into the ocean. Everything is cold and lifeless, like the man holding her. The coldness in her soul scares her more than the fact that a culebra has such a direct line to her neck. He moves his hand to the bottom of her jaw, his fingers pressing against her throat. "Just kill me already," she says fiercely, clenching her teeth and digging her nails into his skin as hard as she can. "Didn't you ever learn not to play with your food?" She can feel the smirk against her skin and it drags a chill up her spine. "I hate you."

"No, you don't," he says, because he knows more about her than she does, because he's Richie and he knows everything. His fingers stroke down her neck. "Will you scream for me?"

"No," she gasps out. His fingers close down against her throat and the arm around her middle gets more constrictive. Her life flashes before her eyes and she squeezes them shut as fangs sink into her neck. The light in her soul begins to dim as the blood drains from her veins.  _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you_ , she repeats as her mind darkens

He's being too nice. She should have known better. There's even more pain and she slips out of her own body and she can  _feel_  him rip her throat out, the arteries and the muscles.

Kate jerks awake with a gasp and she slaps her hands over her throat.

"Kate? Kate!" Seth's hands slide around her now, warm and comforting. He puts one hand against her face and rubs her back with the other. "Kate, Katie, shhh."

She coughs and blinks and tries to remember where she is and why it is so dark and why Seth is with her. Her eyes start to focus and his face comes into sharp view. "Seth," she whispers. "Hey." She lifts her hands and grabs his shoulders.

"Hey," he echoes. "You okay, kid?"

She blinks and swallows and moves her hands to his neck, brushing her thumbs over his skin. "Yeah just…nightmares." She shakes her head. She wants to tell him that it's Richie, that he's still haunting her, only this was worse than him turning into some sort of monster. This was him very much Richie, alive in the greatest sense he could be, and he killed her.

"Living and breathing," he says.

She tilts her head to the side and then she gets his reference. A smile breaks across her face and she shakes her head. "Okay," she says, rolling her eyes and taking her hands back. Seth drops his hands from her, too. She runs her palms over her face and through her hair, dragging her fingernails over her scalp.

Seth's hand brushes against her back when he sits forward.

The door is forced open and bangs against the wall. Both of their heads snap to attention and they get to their feet.

It's the same woman who brought them into this room. Neither of them can tell if she is human or culebra, but they follow her when she says Carlos is ready for them.

8

"These, are for you," Carlos says, sweeping a hand through the air toward Kate. There's a row of white dresses hanging off of a metallic bar on wheels.

"Is that really necessary?" Seth asks, but Kate walks forward, running her hands over the soft material. She tries to ignore the uncomfortable chill that runs across her skin whenever she's around Carlos. She tries not to think of the curse and the part that she will play in placing such a burden on an innocent girl. "Dressing her up like a sacrifice?"

Carlos shrugs his shoulders smoothly. "But she is not a sacrifice. You keep forgetting that."

Seth clenches his jaw and Kate looks over her shoulder at him. She trusts him. She will never trust Carlos, no matter if he threw his life down on the line for her. He took her brother away from her, and she has no forgiveness left in her for people like him. "Which one do I wear?" she asks, turning back to the dresses. There are eight and they are all in her size.

"Whichever you prefer," Carlos says, stepping close and letting his hand fall against her shoulder.

Seth takes a step forward, but Carlos has all the power here. He has Seth's millions, he has Scott, he has them prisoner in a compound of culebra and fearful human slaves. Kate's entire body tenses. She doesn't like having to do this, to be judged and bullied into doing something so horrible. The Gecko brothers never made her do anything terrible, not directly.

"You can take all of them," Carlos tells her, reaching a hand forward and brushing his own fingers against the soft material.

He has already told them the plan. The girl they need to gather is protected in a remote village. They're very suspicious and it will take all of Kate's kindness and purity of soul to even get close to the girl, and the symbolism of the pure white dress will help her even more. Kate wants to save this girl she's never met, but she wants her brother back. Something has to give.

"Thank you," she forces out.

Carlos smirks and tightens his fingers against her shoulder. "There, did you hear that Seth? She said thank you. Did you ever thank me for anything I've done for you?" He turns away from Kate and she sucks in a breath that had been caught in her throat, trying not to shudder as his hand falls away.

"You did shit for me, Carlos," Seth says stubbornly, eyes flickering over to Kate. "You tricked me into coming to your bar, you stabbed me in the back with Narciso, you stole all my money."

Carlos shrugs and presses his palms together. "That is all in the past, Seth. Let's look at the future." He motions for Seth to follow.

Seth steps toward Kate and takes her wrist in his hand to bring her along with him. He won't let her out of his sight. Carlos says nothing and continues walking. They move through another rough doorway in steel sheeting walls and they find themselves back in the main hanger. Seth's Camaro is the only car of color amid the black SUVs and one car of American muscle.

"That one's yours," Carlos says, pointing at the Roadrunner with its sharp lines and dark paint. "There are maps and a full tank of gas."

"And a tracker, right?" Seth asks, walking closer to the car. Kate follows, even though she doesn't care about the car. She just wants to get this over with.

Carlos chuckles, the sound off-putting. "I know you'll do what needs to be done,  _gringo_."

Seth arches an eyebrow, not missing the animosity in Carlos's tone. "Right. Are we doing this on your dime or mine?" If he's getting under Carlos's skin, than he can contain himself and play it cool.

Carlos drags his tongue along his teeth. "What do you need money for?"

Seth sighs and faces Carlos head on. Kate can almost physically see him transform from the gentle protector to the calm and collected con man. "Food for one. Unlike you and your Brady Bunch, Kate and I eat food, not people. And a hotel room. We need time and space to prepare for stealing a girl away from her home."

Kate crosses her arms and stands next to him, though she knows that she is nowhere near as intimidating as Seth.

Carlos tilts his head to the side. "Fair enough."

8

An hour later, Seth and Kate have a few hundred pesos to their name, a suitcase of dresses in the trunk, and a Roadrunner with a tracking device tucked away into the body.

Kate smooths a map over her lap, the route they're supposed to be taking has been highlighted in orange, but she's not looking at it. Her eyes aren't focused on anything; her head is turned forward toward the windshield.

"Kate? Kate. Hey, Kate," Seth's voice struggles through her muddled mind.

Kate blinks and shakes her head, looking over at him. He keeps glancing from the road ahead to her sitting next to him. "What?"

"You okay? You're off in your own little world," he observes.

Kate folds her arms under her breasts and shakes her head. "I don't even know. Carlos is…I hate him."

"Join the club, sweetheart," Seth breaths out, settling back in the seat. "Carlos is a downright asshole, he fucked me over and I'm only—"

"Doin' this for me and Scott, I know," Kate finishes for him, pushing her hair back. Her hands are shaking and she tucks them away again.

"We're gonna get out of this, Kate," Seth says again, always the reassuring one. Kate keeps reminding herself that he lost his brother too, that he's just as, or maybe even more, broken up inside than she is and she needs to help him. But she doesn't know how.

"I know we will," Kate says, turning in the seat, her elbow digging into the cushion behind her. "I trust you, Seth. You know that, right?"

He half smiles and glances over at her. "Thanks for reminding me," he says lightly. Her own lips move into a small smile. "You're not too bad to have around either."

Kate rolls her eyes. She situates herself back against the seat and lets out a breath, looking down at the map in her lap. "I hate havin' to do this," she says once the car has been filled with nothing but the sound of the tires moving against the dusty roads.

"I know. I hate it, too. I hate all this gods and vampires bullshit."

She knows he does. "But if we don't do it…" She shivers. "I don't think I'm gonna be able to stand it if we gotta help with the sacrifice."

She speaks so softly, her mind instantly going to an even bigger fear than just the guilt of taking this innocent young girl away from the people who have protected her her whole life and tossing her into a pit of snakes.

Seth shakes his head firmly once. "Nah. No way are we doing that shit. Carlos didn't say anything about that, it's not part of the deal." He slams his hand against the steering wheel and Kate looks over at him with wide eyes.

There's a tension in his jaw and his shoulders. Kate presses her lips into a line and looks down at the map. She trails her index finger down the highlighted line. It slid down the middle of Mexico like a broken spine, leading them into the middle of nowhere.

"I won't let you get involved in any blood sacrifices," Seth breaks the silence again and Kate looks over at him. "I mean it. Got it?"

Kate bites down on her bottom lip and nods fiercely.

8

The motel has about eight rooms and such an old man behind the counter Kate isn't entirely convinced that he's even alive if it wasn't for the stiff movements of his hands taking their money. The second they walk outside the  _No_  on the vacancy sign flips on. Kate raises her eyebrows and glances over the roof of the car at Seth. They're in the middle of nowhere, after having driven for a few hours and she couldn't imagine anyone else who would come to this town that can't even be called a town.

They drive the car down and park it beside a dusty white car. Seth pulls the suitcase out of the trunk while Kate goes and unlocks the door. She tries not to scrunch up her nose too drastically at the musty smell. There shouldn't be musty smells in the middle of the desert, where the rainy season lasted two or three weeks at most and ninety percent of the time the air was thin and dry.

The suitcase bangs against the doorway and Kate twists around and raises her eyebrows at Seth, a humorous smile playing on her face. Seth gives her a look that tells her to shut up and she moves onward to check the bathroom.

"Do you remember your speech?" Seth asks when Kate returns to the main room, leaning against the doorway. Carlos had kept them a little longer and forced them to learn the most simplistic speeches in Spanish that he could come up with. The people of this village didn't speak English very well, the more Spanish they could speak, the better. Kate had been taken Spanish at high school back in San Diego, but Seth was just as bad as ever with the language. Luckily, according to Carlos, Seth wouldn't be speaking very much. Most of it was on Kate's shoulders.

"I think so," she says, sighing and walking over to one of the beds. They always get rooms with two beds and it was just their luck that every room at this motel had two mattresses. The blanket looks thin and worn. She sits down, expecting the bed to be soggy and gross, but it's pretty comfortable. She curls her hands around the edge of the mattress and repeats the phrases, the words falling off her tongue like they were meant to be.

When Kate opens her eyes, Seth's sitting across from her on the other mattress. He's looking at her oddly and she lifts an eyebrow. "You okay?" she asks, the phrase normally tossed at her from him, not the other way around.

He blinks and nods, sitting back and rubbing his palms against his thighs. "Yeah," he says, moving his head from side to side and stretching his neck.

"You're lyin'," she tells him. She sits forward and puts her own hands on his knees, forcing him to look at her. "What's the matter?"

Seth's eyes flicker from her own to her nose to her lips and back to her eyes again. "Kate," he says, prying her hands off of his legs. "Don't try and psychoanalyze me."

He says it gently but firmly. She sighs and sits back, pressing her palms behind her on the bed, keeping her propped up. "What're we doin' here, Seth?"

He likes that question better, so he stands up and starts his normal pacing. He would look even more normal if he had a gun in his hand, but he doesn't. No weapons allowed, Carlos's orders. There won't be any culebra out there, or, at least, that's what was promised to them. "We're gonna prepare. You know your lines, good, maybe you can help with mine," he smirks a little, fessing up to his own lack of language skills, "and we can figure out how we're gonna do this."

Kate nods, following him with her eyes until she scoots back on the bed and pulls her legs up onto the bed. She faces the other side of the room and watches Seth walk back and forth. "And relax? Right, that's part of the plan? We're gonna spend the night and head to the village early tomorrow."

"Yeah," Seth agrees with her.

She moves her head up and down. It almost feels like they're back in time, during those three weeks when they were searching for Richie and Santanico.

8

"Seth?" she whispers into the darkness of the room. She has her arm tucked under her pillow and the thin sheet and blanket laying over her body, clinging to her curves like a little mountain range. "Are you asleep?"

She hears him shift and roll onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "No," he says, voice scratchy from hours of disuse.

Kate bites down on her lips and pushes herself up on her elbow. "Can I…if I promise not to kiss you, can I go over there?" She remembers the drunken kiss, the confusion swimming around in her own head, the way she craved someone to fill that space in her soul where Richie is supposed to be. She thought that another Gecko would do the trick, but Seth isn't as easily swayed as she thought he would be.

Now, she feels her limbs shaking at the concept of making a deal with the enemy, about condemning a girl to a life of slavery just because she wanted her brother back.

She wasn't asking for much; a little comfort, a warm body to remind her that she was alive.

Seth lets out a long sigh and scoots over on the mattress, pulling the sheets and comforter down for her without a word. Kate slips out of her bed and into his, pulling the covers over her and sinking into the warm spot on the mattress where he had just been laying. She takes in a deep breath. This time it isn't Kate who moves, but Seth, rolling onto his side and slipping his hand over her hip. Just a little, a light touch to test the water.

"Seth," she says like a question. He lets out a breath and starts to pull his hand back, but Kate slides hers over his before he can. She presses the palm of her hand against the back of his and presses her fingers between his, pulling his hand closer, his arm around her. Seth moves over and she can feel his breath on the back of her neck, the way he fans his hand over her stomach.

He wiggles the fingers of his other hand under her form and pulls her hips back against him.

"What about your wife?" she asks softly, tilting her head to the side a little. She can feel the stubble on his chin brush against the back of her neck.

He breathes heavy and presses his forehead to the back of her head, pressing his nose into her hair, soft and smelling crisp and clean. "I'm never gonna see her again," he says, curling his fingers around her side and pulling her back against his chest like he can't stand to have any space between them.

"Why not?"

"She's smart, she took her money and ran," he shifts on the mattress and presses a kiss behind her ear. "I'm a thief, I'm not stupid. I hate her more than I love her."

"Okay," Kate says a little loudly, twisting her torso and searching for his eyes in the darkness. "Stop talkin'." She moves her free hand and slips it around his cheek, all rough and sharp edges.

"Yeah, okay," he mutters, leaning down and pressing his lips roughly against hers.

Everything about him is rougher, and she can't help but compare him to Richie, not just because they're brothers, but because Richie was the only other person to sleep with her. She barely counts the little flirtations she had with Kyle back in Bethel.

Kate's hands slide over his skin, trying to trace out the flames on his arm without the illumination of much light. His own hands slide over her clothes until he pushes her shirt up and she can feel his calloused warm skin against her pale soft body. She drags one hand down over his chest and to the front of his boxers, eliciting a surprised noise at the back of his mouth.

She smirks slightly and he pulls back from a kiss. "Easy there, princess."

"Isn't this what they do in all the Hollywood movies?" she responds, hooking her other arm around his neck and pulling herself flush against him for a moment before she pushes herself away and tugs off her shirt. She takes his hands and puts them on her sides, but he moves them up on his own, and she presses his back against the bed.

Their kissing is feverish and rushed, as is the removal of the rest of their clothes. Seth makes one final attempt at stopping.

"I never pegged you for a gentleman," Kate says, rolling her eyes and pressing her open mouth against his and guiding his hand down between her legs. That's all he needs for encouragement and soon the sheen of sweat covers both their bodies, their hips are rocking together, the both of them lost within each other and the deep desert darkness.

It's what they  _need_. They both lost someone important to them, they were both under Carlos's thumb, they were both so close to destroying the life of an innocent girl. Kate is drowning in her Christian guilt and Seth has no tether to his sanity without his brother.

8

"Hey."

She frowns against the sun and closes her eyes instantly the moment she tries to open them, raising a hand to block the rays. It's so bright that it's blinding. The voice sounds far away.

"Kate…"

Someone's much larger hand covers her own, shielding her eyes from the sun. As soon as their skin touches, the light dims and she can blink open her eyes.

She can see nothing but her hand at first, her eyes focusing on the closest object, but then she moves it, and the other hand moves with hers.

"Richie," she breathes out.

He flashes her that half-smile half-smirk and moves to sit across from her, still holding onto her hand, curling his fingers against her palm.

She says his name again in disbelief. They're outside, in those rickety old pool chairs, the blue water nearby reflecting the bright sun and there are no shadows. She doesn't feel unsafe. There will be no zombies or culebra or anything  _other_  popping out to kill her and make her wake up sobbing.

"What's goin' on?" she asks, sitting forward and grabbing his other hand, running her hand up his arm, over his suit jacket.

"What do you mean?" He tries to move either of his arms away from him but she won't let him go. "It's a nice day, you wanted a swim. I followed."

"But not to swim," she comments, noting he was fully clothed. Like always. She used to have these dreams all of the time, after he was turned and she and Seth were looking for him. They were scattered between the nightmares and wet dreams before they became all the more real after he tasted her blood. Then they were both conscious about what they said during these scenes.

"Not to swim. That's your thing. I prefer flames."

She scoots so far off her chair she almost falls, her knees pressing against his. "Is this real?" she asks. She's been healing, or trying to, for six months now. She is getting familiar with the darkness and the tears. She isn't prepared for the rays of a burning star and a flood of soul-driven connection.

"If you want it to be," Richie says with a shrug, the words coming off his tongue easily, like always.

She stands then, not all that much taller than him sitting there. She moves her hands up his arms to his shoulders and to his face. His glasses are there, perched on the bridge of his nose, like always. His hands slide up her damp legs and rest on her waist. She doesn't know what she wants, but she doesn't waste time saying that. She leans in and kisses him like her life depended on it, like the breath in his lungs was the only thing that could keep her alive.

8

Curtains slide metallically against a rail. Kate winces against the sun and slaps her arms over her face to block it out.

"Rise and shine." Seth's voice cuts through her groggy mind and she slowly drops her arms, squinting until her eyes adjust. He's half dressed in trousers and his hair is wet. She glances over at the bathroom and sees the steam on the mirror.

Kate props herself up on her elbows. Her lips part slightly and a slight flush overcomes her features but she tries to hide it. Sitting up, she clutches the sheets to her chest and crosses her legs. She tries not to think about her dream. She can't without crying and that's not what she needs to do right now.

"You need to get ready, we have to go get that girl," he says, glancing over at her. Kate nods and watches him pull on a plain white t-shirt. "I'll get us some breakfast. Get yourself cleaned up."

She nods at him and he glances back at her once before he exits through the door, leaving her alone.

She lets out a heavy breath and flops back down against the bed. "Shit," she whines out. She allows herself to lie there for a few lingering minutes before she forces herself out of bed and into a shower, washing away any traces of the previous night. She scrubs away her sins, especially since she'll be wearing white and needs to be as pure as possible to gain the trust of the village and the girl. She lets herself cry as she scrambles to remember how kissing Richie felt, but she can barely scrounge up a ghost of a touch against her lips.

Kate wraps herself in a towel and walks into the main room, pulling on the boring white cotton underwear given to her by Carlos. She smooths out the blankets over Seth's bed and lays out the many dresses. She trails her hands over them and grabs the one with small white flowers embroidered over the skirt and a synched waist. She puts it on and tries to see her full frame in the mirrors scattered around the room. She doesn't like how short and dumpy the skirt length makes her look and is just stepping out of it when Seth walks in.

"Oh uh, sorry," he says, instantly turning his back to her and hastily shutting the door.

"It's fine," she shrugs, stepping fully out of the dress and laying it back out on the bed with the others. "I can't pick which to wear." He turns slightly toward her. "Which best says, 'Hello, I'm here to ruin your life, please trust me'?" She scoffs and frowns, crossing her arms.

Seth walks over and slips his hands around her face, forcing her to turn toward him. "Kate, listen." She closes her eyes and he brushes her cheeks with his thumbs. "Open your eyes. This isn't the end of the world, remember? We're  _stopping_  the end of the world, not starting it."

She sighs and slips her fingers around his wrists, pulling his hands from her face. "Still doesn't make it any easier." She steps away from him and looks back down at the dresses.

"Eat some breakfast, I'll deal with the dress issue, alright? You don't wanna get taco sauce on them."

"Taco sauce?"

He waves a hand behind him. "Or whatever sauce they put on breakfast burrito things, I don't fucking know."

The corner of her lips twist up for a fraction of a second before she pulls open the bag of food and the room is filled with the sweet scent of fresh eggs and potatoes and chili spices.

Less than an hour later, they're both dressed and fed. Kate is wearing one of the white dresses with wide straps and a flowy skirt as opposed to the stiff bottoms of the other ones. She pulls on nude flats and braids her hair to keep it from knotting and tangling around her face. Neither of them say much.

Kate smooths the map over her lap again and Seth drives with the windows down. When they get close, he slows his speed. The village shows up in the distance and he slows even more. It's not even noon. Kate feels her heart catch in her throat. As the buildings get close enough for her to make out windows, her stomach curls and she grips the sides of the map so hard that the paper rips.

Seth stops the car abruptly and turns to her, reaching out a hand to take her and pry open her fingers.

"I don't think I can do this," she whispers, closing her eyes, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. "I can't do this. I'm gonna be sick."

Seth leans in as close as he can. "Kate, listen,  _hey_." He gives up on her hands and takes her face, forcing her to look at him. "You can do this. Just think of your brother."  _At least you still have yours_.

Unspoken words fall heavy in the air between them.

Kate swallows down the bile in the back of her throat and nods, smoothing out her hands. "Okay," she says, nodding again.

Seth nods too and lets her go, settling back in his seat. "We can do this. I'll be right behind you."

8

Kate straightens out her speech and clutches onto the remnants of high school Spanish that doesn't seem to be of much use out in the real world. She steps out of the car, feeling every rock and pebble under her thin soled shoes. Seth gets out, too. They're met by five men, dressed in rough looking trousers and yellow stained shirts.

Kate speaks first, remembering the words and information Carlos had told her. It was hard to pay attention when the sight of him made her skin crawl, but she had to do this. She was doing this for Scott, for the world…

The words, the lies, fall easily off her tongue, even as her knees shake and her throat feels dry. She gives Seth a fleeting glance over her shoulder when an older woman with white hair walks up to her and speaks to her slowly, as if realizing that Kate isn't fluent in the language. The woman tells her to follow and Kate knows Seth can't come with her. So she looks at him over her shoulder one last time in case she's being ushered away to her death because they can see through her lies.

Her chain and cross hang heavy from her neck.

The girl is young, twelve, almost thirteen, with a round face, wide eyes and her thick, dark hair plaited and laying down her back. Kate's heart thuds in her ears when she sees her, the reason why she's here settling on her shoulders. She can barely stumble through her Spanish speech, especially after being introduced to the girl, Celica, because now she feels even more personally involved.

Somehow these people trust Kate. Celica speaks in soft tones, like she's not used to speaking, and reaches for Kate's cross, pressing her fingertips over the gold. "Would you like to come with me?" Kate asks after a while, swaying from Carlos's perfectly executed script.

Celica looks up at her, eyes big and dark. She's seen nothing in her life by this tiny town, these people who have been protecting her for the past dozen years. She doesn't know how to fear or what lying is, how could she? "Yes, I would like that," Celica echoes.

And it is settled. Kate is given a meal, sitting on the ground next to Celica, with a handful of other people sitting around the small building with them. Kate can barely stomach any food, but she forces herself to eat as to not offend her hosts.

By the time Kate and Celica are leaving the close-knit community, each person saying a personal goodbye to the spiritually special girl, Kate feels like she hasn't breathed since she left the car and Seth. She holds herself together, even after spotting Seth in the distance, still leaning up against the Roadrunner, waiting for her.

Celica, about to leave behind her entire life and everything she's ever known, takes Kate's hand without any hesitation and squeezes. Kate sucks in a breath but forces a soft smile for the girl as they walk toward Seth. Kate can't even think to process Seth's expression, she's just trying to hold herself together.

Celica eyes him though, in curiosity, not in fear. "Who is this?" she asks in Spanish.

Seth raises his eyebrows, but Kate moves Celica in front of them and introduces them in Celica's native tongue. "This is my friend, Seth," she explains. "He's going to be driving us back." She doesn't specify where  _back_  is. Kate can't allow herself to lie any more than she already has. Even just withholding information is making her feel dirtier right down to her soul.

Seth smiles, as close to a comforting expression that he can manage, and he looks so much more natural and at ease. It reminds Kate that she's the naïve one and he's the one who spent years and years conning people and lying through his teeth.

Celica bows her head and says a quiet hello. Kate takes her around the car and opens the door, pulls back the seat and motions her inside. Kate joins the younger girl and Seth closes them in, saying little.

Seth glances into the rearview at Kate, who just shakes her head slightly. Celica scoots forward in the seat and waves out the window, having no idea that she's being driven to her damnation.

8

After an hour, Celica, who's done little in her life, falls asleep from the excitement. Kate asks Seth to pull over and she moves into the front seat. She wrings her hands and rakes her fingers through her hair before pulling it back in a messy ponytail to get it off of her neck.

"I can't believe we're doin' this," Kate whispers, her voice shaking. She lets her eyes grow glossy for the first time since the car ride this morning.

"I know," Seth says. Celica has snuggled down in the back seat, sleeping peacefully. "I don't feel good about this, princess."

Kate looks over at him, smoothing her hands over the white fabric over her lap. He says it with a directness that almost shocks her. "Seth, I never thought you were…" her words trail off. "I know this is all my fault."

"It's not your fault," Seth says, even though, as much as he says this, she still won't believe it. "We're both put in a situation that we can't get out of unless we did something we don't like doing."

Kate shakes her head and rubs her temples with her fingertips. "Scott's my brother, it's my fault," she insists. "I'm the older one, I'm not supposed to let anything happen to him and what do I do? I let him get turned into a blood sucking monster."

"Preaching to the choir, sweetheart," Seth says, glancing over at her.

She sighs, the realization of the parallels between her and Seth hitting her in the face right  _now_. She never thought of it like this before now, not like this. She sinks back in the seat and looks over at him. She presses her lips together and blinks once, twice. "I'm sorry, Seth, I…" A tear streaks down her face and she lifts up her fingers to swipe it away.

"Hey," he says softly, eyes turned out the windshield. The expanse of desert and low brush lay out in front of them, giving them a sense of mock freedom. "We have the chance to save your brother, so we're going to do it."

"We," Kate repeats softly under her breath. Before she looks over at him, she looks down at her hands, small and still soft, not damaged by elongated fights with weapons against beasts of the night.

"No more third wheeling," Seth continues. "I did enough of that the first time around." They both know what he's talking about. It took seeing his brother turned from a culebra back to a human being to really make him believe that this entire god-and-demons-and-prophecies thing was really  _real_.

Neither of them talk about what saving really means in their eyes. They  _saved_  Richie; living life as a monster wasn't something either of them could allow. It was selfish, and who knows, maybe he would have been perfectly fine living on for centuries as a culebra. There were too many possibilities to think about. The only thing Kate is sure about is that she and Seth are entirely too selfish to give up their siblings and that is as much of a crutch as it is anything positive.

Kate twists around and looks down at the little girl sleeping in the back. Is she selfish enough to give up this girl's life, her  _soul_ , just to save her brother?

8

They don't stop this time. They ride straight through to Carlos's warehouse. They don't talk about themselves, they most definitely don't mention the previous night, and Kate doesn't tell Seth about her dream with Richie.

Forty-five minutes from the warehouse, Seth pulls over for gas at a station. It's one of three buildings in a sad excuse for a town. Celica is half asleep in the back and Kate tells her in broken Spanish that she can stay and that she'll get her some food. Celica sinks back into the smooth leather. Kate closes the car door loudly and looks over at Seth across the roof.

He feels her eyes on her and looks. Kate opens her mouth to say something but doesn't, just turns and makes her way into the small, dingy store. The walls and ceiling are pieces of  _whatever_  tacked and screwed and nailed together. Kate's half afraid she'll step on a nail and get tetanus, so she carefully walks around the two small aisles, checking the dates on bags and plastic for anything not out of date.

She barely sees anything, her eyes unfocused as her mind whirls. She absently grabs some chips and three bottles of water—the labels look old but the seal on the caps are unbroken—and walks up to the man behind the counter. His eyes are cloudy with age, his hair mostly white and unkempt.

" _Hola_ ," she says with a small smile, before she realizes she's still wearing that white dress Carlos gave her. She has no money and glances outside at Seth. " _Yo paga con él_." Her Spanish is elementary and she's tired and stressed, but she hopes the simplistic sentence will get it across that she is not, in fact here to rob the man. If anyone were to rob this place, it would be Seth.

The older man just nods and waits as Kate tips back on her heels and sees Celica's head bob up and down in the back seat. Seth finally walks around the car and heads inside.

"I have stuff already," Kate says to him as he starts toward the back of the store, eyes on the aisles.

"I know," he says in return.

Kate glances at the man behind the register before she darts into the aisle. Seth is standing in front of the single loud refrigerator keeping drinks cool. Kate stands behind him, pushing herself onto her toes, her chin brushing his shoulder. "I don't think I can do this," she says, voice barely audible over the racing cooling engine.

"And what're we gonna do about that?" he replies, voice just as low.

Kate curls her hands around his upper arm and wedges herself halfway between him and the soda case. "What does that mean?" she asks, eyebrows snapping together.

Seth looks from the  _made with real sugar_  Cola to Kate's wide green eyes. "I mean, what are we gonna do about Celica? We can't just drop her here. She has no life experience. She'd be raped and dead on the side of the road by nightfall."

Kate frowns, leaning her shoulder against the cool glass. "And Carlos has that car tracker." She can see no way out of it, but somehow Seth has changed his tune and is agreeing that they can't just hand the girl over to Carlos.

Seth nods and gently wraps his arm around her to move her out of the way. "I'll figure something out," he tells her quietly before grabbing a Coke in a glass bottle and dishing out enough money to pay for the snacks, water, and gasoline.

In the car, Celica digs into the food, exclaiming because she's never seen anything like it, having only ever eaten homemade, traditional Mexican food. Kate's heart begins to beat faster against her chest as the sky grows darker and she can see Nogales in the distance. Without saying anything, Seth slides his hand over her leg and she slips hers under, lacing their fingers together and holding on tight until he has to downshift as the car slows its acceleration.

"Are we almost there?" Celica asks, voice breathy and excited.

" _Sí_ ," Kate says, grateful that the girl can't see her face, which is dark and worried. She's chewed the inside of her cheek so much she can taste metallic. It makes her think of Richie, about being bathed in blood in the Twister and losing her family. She squeezes her eyes shut as they drive closer to the town.

"Where are you going?" Kate asks as the car comes to a screeching halt. She hopes that it just looks like they ran into a road block to Carlos watching the tracker. But there is no road block.

Seth furrows his eyebrows and jams the car into park. He jumps out and pulls the seat forward. "Out," he says to Celica. Kate doesn't repeat the word in Spanish, but the girl gets out anyway.

"Seth! What are you doing?" Kate hisses, wrenching open the passenger door and getting to her feet. The night air whips unexpectedly around her.

Celica looks scared and Kate smooths her face into something gentle, taking the girl and putting an arm around her shoulders in front of the Roadrunner. "It's okay," she says, hoping her voice is soothing. They're in the middle of a residential area. This is no tourist Mexico here.

Seth disappears without a word into a dark doorway and Kate hisses his name after his retreating back. He arrives just a moment later with a middle aged man, one that both Seth and Kate recognized. It was the same man who's great grandmother helped Kate perform the ritual that brought Richie back to a human life.

"Oh my God," Kate whispers. Another older woman trails behind the man, looking much like the old woman from before. Only, not quite so old.

"This is my grandmother," the quick introduction is made. This was the daughter of the ancient woman who helped save Richie.

"What is going on?" Celica asks Kate.

"You're staying here," Kate tells Celica delicately. "It is safe, I promise." She gives Celica a bright smile, which the girl returns, along with a quick, tight embrace.

"My grandmother foresaw this happening," the man says. "You must go, now, before your stop looks deliberate." He hands Seth something but Kate is already making her way back to the car.

"How did you know?" Kate asks as soon as Seth closes his door.

Seth shrugs. "How'd you know to trust him before?"

Kate nods. She couldn't explain it, she just knew that she could and ended up saving Richie because of it. "Carlos is not gonna let us get away with this," she says. They're only a fifteen minute drive from the warehouse at most.

"I got that covered," Seth says with a little confidence. Not enough for Kate to believe that she is going to get out of this night unharmed, but enough to make her feel better about not bringing Celica with them despite what could happen for backing out of a deal with Carlos.

She has a feeling his plan involved whatever had been handed over to him by the mysterious man that kept popping up in their lives, but she can't see what it is. She doesn't say a thing, only feels the settling dread on her shoulders as they drive away from the houses stacked like lopsided Legos and toward the dark and lumbering warehouse.

It is after dusk, the skies barely streaked with any remaining orange or yellow. The culebra will be at their strongest. Seth stops the car a few yards from the metal door, pushed up just enough to fit a car under. He cuts the engine and turns in the seat toward Kate.

"You okay?" he asks, sending a sharp pain through her heart.

Kate just nods. "I trust you," she says, because it's true. She lifts a hand and hesitates but sets her palm against his scratchy cheek. She pushes herself toward him and kisses him, like someone wrote a tragedy for her life and this was the final act, the final chance for a spark of kindness.

His arm, looped across their seats, slips down, his hand brushing across her shoulder and then she pulls back like she's just only remembered something important. "What?" he asks, because she looks at him like she's accusing him of something.

"It's nothing," she says, shaking her head and settling back in her seat, reaching toward the door. "Let's go."

Culebra come to greet them. Seth hides whatever was given to him earlier and takes Kate's hand, holding it the way you hold a child's, and ducks under the garage door with her. The place is nearly cleared, with just two other cars there. One of them is Seth's blue Camaro. Seth pauses to yank down the heavy door, cutting them off from the night.

Kate's breath hitches in her chest when she spots Scott, standing next to Carlos, who is as expertly dressed as ever.

"I see you have returned," he says in that thickly accented tone of him that made her skin crawl.

"Yep," Seth says. He's steady next to her, not showing any fear, not giving away the fact that they were about to screw over a culebra who had shown in their past to not be someone you should screw over.

Carlos licks his canine in annoyance and clasps his hands in front of him. "Where is the girl?"

Seth shakes his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Kate's hand is hot and sweaty against his cool palm. She's gonna give everything away. But will it really make a difference in a few minutes?

Carlos purses his lips. "That is unfortunate. I thought the task was simple enough."

"It was," Seth continues. "I'm just not sure I trust you. We have the girl somewhere safe."

Kate's eyes are steady on Scott. He's looking at her too, telling her with his eyes that she was stupid, that she shouldn't have come back for him. Doesn't he know how selfish she is? All she wants is  _to want_ : she wants her brother back, she wants Celica to live a long life, she wants Seth to be happy, she selfishly wants everything to be good for  _everyone_. Her soul is so corrupt with greed that she cannot see any other way.

That's what makes this so easy.

"Unfortunately, since you did not keep up your end of the bargain—" Carlos moves too fast for any human to stop him, grabbing Scott from behind, an arm across his throat, knife pulled from under his coat, "neither will I."

Kate can't help it. She screams when Carlos shoves the knife through her brother's chest. She lurches forward, but Seth grabs her around the waist and holds her back. "No! Scott!" Her body grows heated and angry tears slip from her eyes. Her selfishness would do nothing to save him now. Scott's body fades and crumbles.

Seth lets her go.

Everything happens so quickly, yet it feels like time is moving in slow motion as they live through it. Seth doesn't leave her side but falls a step behind. Kate runs forward without any thought, without any weapons. She doesn't care at this point. She's a flash of angelic white and blind fury, only to be caught by the throat by Carlos, turned to scales with protruding fangs. He hisses at her.

"You should have done what I told you," he says, lifting her feet off the ground.

Kate digs her hands into the flesh of his hands and kicks. "Fuck you," she gasps out.

He smirks, a dangerous looking expression. "Did your father know what kinds of things you did with Kyle in the back of his church?"

Realization hits her square in the chest. She hadn't heard from Kyle since he punched her father…but, Kyle would  _never_ …Carlos laughs and Kate sucks in air through her nose. She hikes her leg back and kicks at his chest as hard as she can, like she's trying to kick a field goal. It startles him enough for Seth to pull whatever sharp and spiny weapon he got from town through Carlos's chest from behind. The grip on Kate's throat loosens and she's dropped, landing on her feet but falling to her knees from the strain. She looks up to see Seth gripping the weapon and watches as Carlos's face falls slack and he mutters something that doesn't sound quite like Spanish before he too falls to ash and flames.

Seth stands there, chest heaving like he'd been fighting all night. Kate pushes herself to her feet.

"Seth?"

"Get behind me," he says as the garage door opens. Three of Carlos's cronies come inside to find piles of dust and the scent of death in the air. Kate hardens her gaze and grabs the knife that fell from Carlos's hand when he grabbed her. The knife that killed her brother for good. She holds it like a pro and narrows her eyes at the advancing culebra.

The three of them are ashes in minutes after a fight that ended up denting both cars. Kate's dress is smeared with blood and ash and Seth stares down at the ancient looking weapon in his hand as the dust settles.

Kate feels herself shaking. "What now?" she asks, her voice barely strong enough to hear.

Seth looks up from the weapon. "You know that thing Carlos said about the Nine Lords coming to earth if they weren't sated?"

She nods, walking closer to him. Carlos's knife is lying where she'd dropped it after her culebra kill.

"We just royally pissed them off," Seth says, trying to smirk and sound cool about it. He keeps the weapon in hand and holds out his other. Kate takes it and follows him to where the concrete floor gave way to dirt ground.

She could feel it rumble. "Did we just…did we just start the apocalypse?"

Seth looks up at the sky, almost dark and filled with stars and a full moon. "How selfish of us." It wasn't an answer, and yet it was.

Selfish,  _so_  selfish, they are both selfish enough to want to save each other, to save their blood, their family, rather than the world. They'd brought Celica to a stranger and the world was gonna end anyway. They've saved absolutely no one.

It is so absurd that Kate almost laughs.

"How much do you miss him?" Seth asks. She tightens her hand around his as if she had more strength to give.

"Like my soul will never recover," Kate responds, tears threatening to brim her eyes for a moment before she blinks them away and steels herself against the inevitable. Because it is inevitable, the world is ending. Maybe not right away, but the ground shook harder and she swore the stars took on a red hue.

Seth huffs an agreement. "Yeah, me too."

The cross from great-aunt Hannah sits against her chest. She isn't sure if she believes in heaven anymore, but she hopes, she prays that somehow, somewhere, she can find her family, find Richie and Seth, wherever she ends up.

The world shakes more. Underfoot is the center of the pure desecration of sacred rituals and the Nine Lords of Night are  _angry._

Seth sucks in a breath and lets it out long and steady. "Richie's gonna be so pissed," he says, just as a hand, bigger than the Roadrunner, burst through the ground from below. Kate flinches away toward Seth as the hand stretches upward, showing a forearm and then, with one final intake of breath, the limb crashes down over them.

The old gods have returned.

**Author's Note:**

> So apocalypse yeah?
> 
> (Also totally 100% stole the ending of The Cabin In The Woods but it fit SO WELL.)


End file.
